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Photographic 

Sciences 

Corporation 


23  WIST  MAIN  STRUT 

WEBSTIR.N.Y.  M5S0 

(716)873-4503 


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CIHM/ICMH 

Microfiche 

Series. 


CIHM/ICIVIH 
Collection  de 
microfiches. 


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Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notaa/Notas  tachniquas  at  bibllographiquaa 


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original  copy  availabia  for  filming.  Faaturaa  of  thia 
copy  which  may  ba  bibliogr_;)hically  uniqua, 
which  may  altar  any  of  tha  imagat;  in  tha 
raproduction,  or  which  may  aignif  icantly  changa 
tha  usual  mathod  of  filming,  ara  chackad  balow. 


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Coloured  covers/ 
Couverture  de  couleur 


I      I    Covers  damaged/ 


Couverture  endommagto 


Covers  restored  and  'or  .aminated/ 
Couverture  restauria  at/ou  palliculAe 


I      I    Cover  title  missing/ 


Le  titre  de  couverture  manque 


I      I   Coloured  maps/ 


Cartes  g6ographiquas  en  couleur 

Coloured  ink  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 
Encre  da  couleur  (i.e.  tautre  que  bleue  ou  noire) 


I      !   Coloured  plates  and/or  illuatrations/ 


Planches  et/ou  illustrationa  en  couleur 

Bound  with  other  material/ 
ReiiA  avac  d'au^fas  documents 

Tight  binding  may  cause  shadows  or  distortion 
along  interior  margm/ 

La  re  liure  serrie  peut  causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la 
distortion  le  long  de  la  marge  intirieure 

Blank  leaves  added  during  restoration  may 
appear  within  the  text.  Whenever  possible,  these 
have  been  omitted  from  filming/ 
II  se  peut  que  certaines  pages  blanches  ajouttas 
lors  d'une  restauration  apparaissent  dans  la  taxta, 
mais,  lorsque  cela  6tait  possible,  ces  pages  n'ont 
pas  6ti  film6es. 

Additional  comments:/ 
Commentairas  suppiimantairas; 


1 
t 


L'Inatitut  a  microfilm*  la  maillaur  exemplaire 
qu'll  lui  a  AtA  possible  da  se  procurer.  Les  details 
de  cet  exemplaire  qui  sont  paut-Atra  uniques  du 
point  de  vue  bibliographiqua.  qui  peuvent  modifier 
una  image  reproduite,  ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une 
modification  dana  la  m^thoda  normale  de  f ilmaga 
sont  indiqu6s  ci-dessous. 


I      I   Coloured  pages/ 


D 


Pagea  da  couleur 

Pages  damaged/ 
Pages  endommagies 

Pages  restored  and/oi 

Pages  restaurias  et/ou  pelliculies 

Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxe« 
Pages  dAcolories,  tachet6es  ou  piqu^es 


I — I    Pages  damaged/ 

I      I    Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 

Pyj    Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed/ 


n    Pages  detached/ 
Pages  ddtachies 

SShowthrough/ 
Transparence 


Transparence 

Quality  of  prir 

Qualit^  in6gale  de  I'impression 

Includes  supplementary  materii 
Comprend  du  material  supplimentaire 

Only  edition  available/ 
Seule  Mition  disponibia 


I      I    Quality  of  print  varies/ 

I     j   Includes  supplementary  material/ 

I     I    Only  edition  available/ 


Pages  wholly  or  partially  obscured  by  errata 
slips,  tissues,  etc.,  have  beer  refilmed  to 
ensure  the  best  possible  image/ 
Les  pages  totalement  ou  partiallement 
obscurcies  par  un  feuillet  d'errata,  une  pelure, 
etc.,  ont  M  filmies  A  nouveau  de  fa^on  it 
obtenir  la  meilleure  image  possible. 


This  item  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  chaw^:ed  below/ 

Ce  document  est  filmil  au  taux  de  reduction  indiquA  ci-doasous. 


10X 


14X 


18X 


22X 


26X 


30X 


>i 

12X 


16X 


20X 


24X 


2tX 


32X 


The  copy  filmed  h«r«  has  bMn  rttproducod  thanks 
to  the  gsneroslty  of: 

D.B.WtldonUbrary 
University  of  WMtarn  Ontario 

The  Images  appearing  here  are  the  best  quality 
possible  considering  the  condition  and  legibility 
of  the  original  copy  and  In  keeping  with  the 
filming  contract  specifications. 


Original  copies  in  printed  paper  covers  are  filmed 
beginning  with  the  front  cover  and  ending  on 
the  last  page  with  a  printed  f  r  illustrated  Impres- 
sion, or  the  back  cover  whr  n  appropriate.  All 
other  original  copies  are  filmed  beginning  on  the 
first  page  with  a  printed  or  Illustrated  Impres- 
sion, and  ending  on  the  las»  page  with  a  printed 
or  illustrated  impression. 


Thn  last  recorded  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  the  symbol  ^^  (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  V  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 

Maps,  plates,  charts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
different  reduction  ratios.  Those  too  large  to  be 
entirely  included  in  one  exposure  ai9  filmed 
beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corvier,  left  to 
right  and  top  tc  bottom,  as  many  frames  as 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


L'exemplGire  film*  f ut  reproduit  grlce  A  la 
g^nirositA  de: 

D.B.WaWon  Library 
University  of  Western  Ontark) 

Les  images  suivantes  ont  6t6  reproduites  avec  le 
plus  grand  soin,  compte  tenu  de  la  condition  et 
de  la  nettetA  de  I'exemplaire  fiim6,  et  en 
conformity  avec  les  conditions  du  contrat  de 
filmage. 

Les  exemplalres  origPnaux  dont  la  couverture  en 
papier  est  ImpiimAe  sent  filmte  en  commenqant 
par  le  premier  plat  et  en  terminant  soft  par  la 
dernidre  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration,  srit  par  le  second 
plat,  salon  le  cas.  Tous  les  autres  exemplalres 
originaux  sent  filmte  en  commandant  par  la 
premiere  page  q?ii  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impresiion  ou  d'Mlustration  ot  en  terminant  par 
la  derni'ire  page  qui  comporte  une  celle 
empreinte. 

Un  des  symboies  suivants  apparaltra  sur  la 
derniire  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  le 
cas:  le  symbols  — ►  signifie  "A  SUIVRE ",  le 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 

Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  §tre 
film6s  A  des  taux  de  raduction  diffdrentv. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  Atre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  ciichA,  11  est  filmd  a  partir 
de  Tangle  supirieur  gauche,  de  gauche  d  droite, 
et  de  haut  en  bas,  en  prenant  le  nombre 
d'images  nAcessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  mdthode. 


1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

The  Ethical  Impoet 


OF 


DARWINISM 


The  Ethical  Import 


OF 


DARWINISM 


BY 


JACOB   GOULD    SCHUEMAN 

M.A.  (Lona.).  D.Sc.  lEdtnb.) 
8A0B  PBOFESBOR  OP  PHIL080PHT  IN  CORNELL  ONrVBRSITT 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1887 


COPTRIOHT.  1S87.  BT 
CHARLES  SCBIBNBR'S  SONS 


4^Q>01 


TROWa 

PniNTINO  AND  lOOKMNmNa  COMPANY, 

NEW  YORK. 


JAMES  MARTINEAU,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

THB  BTHIOAL  AND  BBtlOIOCS  HBLPHB  OP  TWO  OENBIUinOMBk 

THIS  STVDT  OF  BTOLTmONABT  MOBALS 

IS  INSOBIBBD 

WITH  THB  OBATITOBB  AND  BBTBBBNT  AFFEOTIOM 

OF 

AN    OLD   PUPIL 


PREFACE. 


There  is  a  remark  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  which  has 
always  seemed  to  me  highly  suggestive.  When 
asked  to  explain  her  manifest  antipathy  to  Bishop 
Colenso,  whom  Mr.  Fronde  had  got  invited  to 
one  of  her  tea-parties,  she  confessed  that  it  arose 
in  part  from  the  ancmalons  appearance  presented 
by  "a  man  arrived  at  the  years  of  discretion 
wearing  an  absurd  little  black-silk  apron,"  and  in 
part  from  the  incongruity  between  that  ecclesias- 
tical symbol  and  this  particular  bishop's  "  arith- 
metical confutation  of  the  Bible ;  "  for,  proceeds 
the  philosophical  lady,  generalizing  the  causes  of 
lier  unfavorable  impressions,  "  it  is  the  mixing  up 
of  things  which  is  the  Great  Bad. " 

In  what  passes  with  us  for  the  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution there  is  a  mixture  of  science  and  specula- 
tion. Yet  it  is  customary  to  serve  it  all  up  to- 
gether, so  that  the  hungry  soul  must  needs  take 
all  or  none.  The  result  for  many  minds  is  apt  to 
be  indigestion  or  starvation.     But  this  cruel  di- 


•  •  • 

VUl 


Preface, 


leiijiiia  might  be  escaped,  if  the  fact  and  the  fancy 
entering  into  current  evolutionism  were  kept 
apart  and  dealt  ont  separately.  The  mind's  nat- 
ural craving  for  knowledge  conld  then  be  satisfied 
without  detriment ;  for  it  is  only  when  science  is 
adulterated  with  nescience  that  it  becomes  un- 
wholesome and  poisonous. 

The  object  of  the  present  volume  is  to  distin- 
guish between  science  and  speculation  in  the  ap- 
plication of  Darwinism  to  morals.  The  results 
of  evolutionary  science  in  the  domain  of  matter 
and  in  the  domain  of  life  are  everywhere  taken 
for  granted;  the  philosophical  and,  more  espe- 
cially, the  ethical  t'lieories  currently  associated  with 
them  are  subjected  to  the  most  searching  scrutiny 
I  have  been  able  to  make.  As  it  has  been  pre- 
tended that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  invests 
ethics  with  a  new  scientiJiG  character,  I  first  ex- 
amine the  various  methods  of  ethics  and  attempt 
to  determine  under  what  conditions  alone  ethics 
can  become  a  science-  {This first  chapter  should 
he  omitted  hy  the  general  reader  not  interested  in 
the  logic  of  ethics.)  Whether  Darwinian  ethics 
is  a  piece  of  science  or  of  speculation  appears  in 
the  sequel.  But  before  the  question  is  decided 
we  must  know  what  is  meant  by  Darwinism. 
Accordingly,  the  second  diapter  gives  an  exposi- 


Preface, 


IX 


tion  of  the  Darwinian  theory,  comparing  and 
contrasting  it  with  the  more  general  doctrine  of 
evohitionism,  whose  history  and  meaning  are  a1«o 
briefly  traced.  Tlien  follow  chapters  on  the  phil- 
osophical intei*pretation  and  the  ethical  bearings 
of  Darwinism.  The  fifth  chapter  is  devoted  to 
an  examination  of  the  ethical  speculations  which 
Darwin  grafted  npon  his  biological  science. 
These  chapters  confirming  thoconclnsion  reached 
in  the  first  chapter,  that  a  aoientificy  as  opposed  to 
a  speculative,  etliic  can  be  constmcted  only  by 
adopting  the  historical  method,  the  last  chapter 
has  to  show  what  light  may  be  thrown  upon  ethi- 
cal problems  by  tracing  the  actual  development  of 
moral  ideals  and  institutions,  of  which,  for  ob- 
vious reasons,  the  domestic  virtues  are  hei'e  taken 
as  typical  illustration. 

The  work  is  primarily  the  outcome  of  my  own 
reflective  needs.  It  has  cleared  up  in  my  own 
mind  the  confusion  between  guesses  and  facts, 
which  is  "  the  Great  Bad  "  in  evolutionary  ethics. 
I  am  not  without  hope  that  it  may  also  prove 
clarifying  to  other  minds.  Kot,  of  course,  that 
I  would  presume  to  instruct  trained  philosophical 
experts;  but  I  have  in  view  the  increasingly 
large  number  of  intelligent  men  and  women  who, 
without  making  a  special  study  of  philosophy, 


I 


i 


X  Preface. 

would  fain  comprehend  the  significance  for 
morals  of  that  evohitionarj  theory  which  has 
revolutionized  modern  science  and  culture.  This 
alone  would  have  been  sufficient  motive  for  the 
avoidance  of  obscure  and  technical  phraseology 
and  the  cultivation  of  a  popular  style  ;  but,  apart 
from  that  consideration,  I  hold  that  the  first  duty 
of  any  philosophical  writer  is  to  make  himself 
generally  intelligible,  and  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  there  is  no  theory,  or  criticism,  or  system 
(not  even  Kant's  or  Hegel's),  that  cannot  be  clearly 
expressed  in  a  language  which  in  Locke's  hands 
was  strong  and  homely,  in  Berkeley's  rich  and 
subtle,  in  Hume's  easy,  graceful,  and  finished, 
and  in  all  three  alike  plain,  transparent,  and  un- 
mistakable. 

This  study  of  Darwinism  in  ethics  being  so 
largely  of  a  reflective  character,  reference  to 
other  works  has  not  in  general  been  considered 
necessary.  I  wish  here,  however,  to  acknowledge 
especially  my  indebtedness  to  Darwin,  whose 
ethical  speculations,  illusory  as  I  now  hold  them, 
I  have  found  more  stimulating  than  any  other 
similar  work  since  the  time  of  Kant. 

J.  G.  S. 
CORNBLL  Univebsitt,  August  22,  1887. 


i 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 


METHODS  OP  ETHICS,  EVOLUTIONARY  AND  OTHEii. 

Diversity  of  Ethical  Theories— Need  of  a  Critique  of 
Ethics  as  a  Science — Is  Ethics  a  Science  of  the 
same  Type  as  Logic  ?  It  has  not  in  general  been 
so  regarded— Locke's  Conception  of  Ethics  as  a 
Demonstrative  Science,  like  Mathematics,  rests  on 
a  Misunderstanding  of  the  Procedure  of  Mathe- 
matics,  and  it  assumes,  besides,  Theological  First 
Principles — Ethics  as  a  Natural  Science — Spen- 
cer's Reconstruction  of  Ethics  on  the  Law  of  Uni- 
versal Causation,  after  the  Model  of  Astronomy,  an 
Illusion — Is  Ethics,  then,  if  not  a  Deductive,  at 
least  an  Empirical,  Physical  Science  ? — Its  Limita- 
tions in  Comparison  with  Biology — ^Ethics,  as  a 
Science,  is  a  Branch  of  History — ^What  passes  for 
the  "  Science  of  Ethics  "  is  a  Medley  of  Specula- 
tions—The  Highly  Speculative  Character  of  Cur- 
rent Naturalistic,  Evoiutioaary  Ethics — An  Under- 
standing with  Darwinism  the  Preliminary  to  a 
True  Science  of  Historical  Ethics — Transition  to 
Examination  of  Darwinism  in  fithios,       •  • 


PAOK 


CHAPTER  II. 

EVOLUTIONISM  AND  DARWINISM. 

"The  Origin  of  Species  "—Popular  View  of  Darwin- 
ism—Antiquity of  the  Conception  of  Evolution— 


xii  Contents. 

Firfi  Pointg  of  the  Modern  Theory  anticipated  by 
the  Greeks  —Introduction  of  the  Notion  of  EtoIu- 
tion  into  Modern  Science  by  Kant,  Goethe,  EraH- 
aus  Darwin,  Saint  Hilaire,  Lamarck,  and  Lyell — 
The  Problem  of  Darwin — Importance  of  hia  Ob- 
servations on  the  Formation  of  Domestic  Breeds 
by  Man's  Conscious  Selection — Natural  'Election 
suggested  by  Malthus's  Essay — Fecundity  of  Or- 
ganisms—Struggle for  Life— Survival  of  Favored 
Individuals  begins  the  Formation  of  Species — 
Man's  Relation  to  the  Apes — Darwinism  distin- 
guished from  Evolutionism — How  regarded  by 
Ilelmholtz,  Virchow,  Wallace,  and  Huxley — Net 
Result — Significance  for  Ethics — Dread  of  Science 
an  Anachronism,     ..... 


PAoa 


40 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL    INTEKPKETATION    OP    THE    DABWU?- 

IAN  HYPOTHKSI8. 


Darwin  gives  a  Scientific  Explanation  of  the  Origin  of 
Species — Need  of  a  Philosophical  Analysis  of  that 
Explanation — Significance  of  the  Variations  on 
which  Natural  Selection  works — They  originate, 
ultimately,  in  the  Nature  of  the  Organism — ^They 
are  Indefinite,  according  to  Darwin,  but  the 
Theory  of  Natural  Selection  does  not  require 
that  View,  which  is  not  shared  by  Huxley  and  Asa 
Gray — Natural  Selection  is  th'>  Scientific  Account 
of  the  Accumulation  of  Favorable  Variations  into 
Specific  Characters,  but  the  Phrase  is  apt  to  mis- 
lead through  Metaphorical  Associations — Specula- 
tive License  of  the  Darwinists — What  is  explained 
and  what  is  still  left  a  Mystery  by  Natural  Selec- 
tion— Human  and  Natural  Selection  dependent 
npon    Transcendent    Causation— Parwiu's    Pro- 


Contents, 


Xlll 


fessed  Theism— His  Heohanioal  Philosophy — 
Teleology  and  Darwinism— Evolutionism  for> 
merly  Teleologioal— Has  the  Instinct  of  the 
Cuckoo  a  Fortuitous  Origin  ?— Natural  .J'b:'»ction, 
not  a  Creative,  hut  a  Sifting  Process— Does  not 
explain  the  Fbrmation  of  the  Eye— Variations 
being  predetermined  imply  Teleology— Fortuity 
an  Accident  in  Darwinism,     . 


PAOB 


74 


CHAPTER  IV. 


DARWINISM  AND  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  MORALS. 


The  Problem— The  Moment  of  Utility  in  Natural  Se- 
lection—The Utility  of  Intelligenop  and  Morality 
— Evolutionary  Biology  leads  to  Utilitarian  Ethics 
— ^Utilitarianism  Old  and  New — ^Evolutiono  util- 
itarianism explains  the  Innateness,  Simplicity, 
Universality,  and  Obligation  of  Moral  Laws — What 
Evolutiono-utilitariauism  assumes :  flratf  the 
Derivative  Character  of  Morality;  secondly^  the 
Ultimateness  of  Pleasure  or  some  other  End ; 
thirdlyy  the  Fortuitous  Origin  of  Morality 
through  a  Procers  purely  Mechanical — Man  an 
Automaton,  with  Intelligence  and  Conscience  as 
Accidents  —Speculative  Objections — Practical  Ob- 
jections drawn  from  our  Sense  of  Duty  and  Right 
— But  this  Sense  explained  away  by  Spencer  and 
Guyau — Fallacy  in  their  Theory  of  its  Origin  and 
Future  Decline — Mechanical  Metaphysics,  not 
Evolutionary  Science,  their  Basis— Darwinism 
compatible  with  a  Non-mechanical  and  Non-for- 
tuitous Theory  of  Conscience — involution  not 
^«volntion — Conscience  compared  with  the 
Eye  and  with  the  Intellect — AH  Useful  because 
they  reveal  Facts,  but  not  therefore  mere 
Utilities,      ...... 


116 


I'M 
i 


If! 


xiv  Contents, 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  ETHICAL  SPECULATIONS  OF  DARWIN. 

Darwin^s  Difficulty  with  Intelligence  and  Conscience — 
Probability  of  their  Evolution— Conxparison  of 
Human  and  Animal  Instincts,  Emotions,  Intellect- 
ual Powers,  Progressiveness,  Skill,  and  Speech — 
Conscience  a  Greater  Barrier — Origin  of  Con- 
science— Animal  Sociability — The  Social  Instincts 
being  more  present  and  persistent  than  the  Self- 
ish, if  violated,  generate  under  Reflection  the 
Feeling  of  Remorse,  or  Conscience  —  Darwin's 
Treatment  of  Conscience  compared  with  his 
Treatment  of  Life  and  Mind  :  that  Speculative, 
this  Scientific — Possible  Objection  to  his  Mental 
Science  ;  Insuperable  Objection  to  his  Ethics — In- 
conceivability of  an  absolute  beginning  of  Con- 
science— Darwin  takes  Intelligence  and  (in  his 
Theory  of  Sexual  Selection)  the  Esthetic  Faculty 
Ready-made  :  only  of  Conscience  does  he  venture 
the  Creation— Ambiguity  in  his  use  of  "Con- 
science," and  the  consequent  Perplexity — Con- 
science identified  with  Remorse — How  the  Theory 
fails  to  account  for  even  thh  Conscience — For  the 
Social  Instincts  are  not  more  persistent  and  pres- 
ent ;  and  if  they  were,  to  follow  them  would  bring 
Satisfaction,  not  Remorse,  to  a  Non-moral  Being 
— This  Fact  not  alterable  by  Reflection — Dar- 
win derives  Conscience  from  what  tacitly  im- 
plies it,         .  .  ...  .  , 


I'AOB 


181 


CHAPTER  VI. 


MM 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  MORAL  IDEALS  AND  INSTITUTIONS, 
WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THE  FAMILY. 


MM     I 


111!  I 


Darwin's  Service  to  Histovical  Ethics  indirec'; — History 
of  Morals  and  Ethical  Theories — The  Family  and 


ip: 


Contents, 


XV 


Domestic  Virtues— McLennan's  Theory  of  the 
Evolution  of  the  Family— Form  of  Capture,  Wife- 
stealing,  Exogamy,  Infanticide,  Kinship  through 
Females— Fallacy  of  supposing  a  Universal,  Uni- 
form Development — Absolute  Promiscuity  a  mere 
Fancy — The  Facts  of  Infanticide,  Wife  stealing, 
Polyandry,  Exogamy,  do  no*  warrant  McLeunan*3 
Conclusions— Morgan's  Theory— Infers  Family 
from  System  of  Relationship— The  Malayan  Sys- 
tem gi-  ^s  the  Consanguine  Family,  and  the  Tura- 
nian the  Punaluan — The  Pairing,  the  Patriarchal, 
and  the  Monogamous  Families — Aryan  System  of 
Relationship— This  Theory  follows  the  Process  of 
Logical  Determination  rather  than  Historical  Facta 
— Consanguine  Family,  on  which  all  depends,  a 
Baseless  Myth — Malayan  System  of  Relationship 
not  based  on  Blood-ties  ;  it  is  merely  a  Classifica- 
tion of  Generations — Nor  would  the  Consanguine 
Family  account  for  it — Explanation  rf  the  Tura- 
nian System  different  from  Morgan's — The  other 
Families  examined — Difficulty  of  determining  the 
Development  of  the  Family  —Fallacy  in  Professor 
Robertson  Smith's  Method — Facts,  not  Theories, 
concern  the  Moralist — Some  Facts  concerning 
Limited  Promiscuity,  Kinship  through  Females, 
Settling  in  the  Tent  of  the  Woman,  Infidelity, 
Maidenly  I  ichastity.  Sale  of  Wives,  Incest  — 
Chastity  n  ^t  a  part  of  the  Content  of  the  Moral 
Law  Universal— But  even  the  Relativist  must 
agree  that  the  Moral  Law  has  mme  Absolute  Con- 
tent— Testimony  of  Civilized  and  Uncivilized  Mo- 
rality— Points  of  Difference  explained — Tlie  Posi- 
tion of  Woman — Her  Glory  under  the  Roman 
Empire — Her  Present  and  Future  Position — The 
Operation  of  Divorce  overlooked — Science  cannot 
tell  what  ought  to  be,  . 


PAQB 


201 


I 


ETHICAL   IMPORT   OF  DARWINISM. 


CHAPTER  I. 


METHODS   OF   ETHICS,  EVOLUTIONAEY   AND   OTHER. 

Nothing  can  be  more  perplexing  to  anyone  re- 
flecting upon  the  unanimity  of  men's  moral  judg- 
ments than  the  diversity  and  contrariety  of  the 
theories  founded  upon  tliem.  The  incongruity  is 
as  palpable  as  it  is  startling.  Kor  is  it  much,  if  at 
all,  relieved  by  the  qualification  of  varying  moral 
belief  and  practice,  which  a  more  extended  survey 
of  humanity,  past  and  present,  obl'gesus  to  make 
in  our  first  generalization.  For  if  human  moral- 
ity is  not  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  absolutely 
identical,  it  is  rather  in  minor  details  or  in  unex- 
pected applications  of  common  principles  that 
there  is  an}"  considerable  deviation  from  the  uni- 
versal type.  Besides,  this  divergency  cannot  be 
the  origin  of  our  opposing  ethical  theories,  since 
were  it  to  vanish,  they  would  still  remain.    And, 


it        Diversity  of  Ethical  Theories, 


ym 


\   ! 


i 


indeed,  it  is  a  simple  matter  of  history  that  the 
antinomies  of  our  ethical  systems  have  not  origi- 
nated in  a  distinct  consciousness  of  differences  in 
moral  codes,  for  these  systems  are  almost  always 
theories,  not  of  varying  universal  morality,  but 
of  the  common  morality  of  the  modern  civilized 
world.  The  contrast,  therefore,  between  the  uni- 
formity of  moral  data  and  the  diversity  of  so- 
called  moral  sciences  suffers  no  diminution  from 
the  circumstance  that  that  uniformity  may  be  to 
some  extent  relative.  The  broad  fact  remains, 
that  while  all  are  agreed  that  certain  courses  of 
conduct  are  right  and  the  opposite  w^rong,  moral- 
ists seem  unable  to  agree  in  anything  except  the 
contradictory  claim  of  building  their  incompatible 
theories  upon  these  universally  recognized  propo- 
sitions. 

There  can  be  no  question  about  the  existence 
of  this  fundamental  antinomy.  It  is  admitted, 
or  rather  it  is  accentuated,  by  the  ablest  writers 
on  morals.  Nor  has  any  attempt,  I  believe,  ever 
been  made  to  explain  it  away.  But  while  it  is 
mentioned  as  a  commonplace,  and  put  aside  as  if 
from  fear  of  demonstrating  a  truism,  its  conse- 
quences have  been  steadily  overlooked.  No  one 
has  inquired  whether  a  subject-matter  which  has 
begotten    such  contradictions  really  admits  of 


M 


Methods  of  Ethics,  3 

ficientific  treatment  at  all.  Schleiermacher  is 
bcarcely  an  'ixception,  since  his  profound  and  pen- 
etrating critique  is  rather  a  dialectical  exposition 
of  moral  principles  and  ideas  than  a  logical  in- 
vestigation into  the  requirements  of  a  moral  sci- 
ence. Yet  the  question  is  surely  of  primary  im- 
portance. We  cannot  think  so  meanly  of  science 
as  to  believe  it  \  ssible  for  the  same  problem  to 
have  opposite  solutions.  The  history  of  ethics, 
however,  presents  us  with  this  incredibility.  Is, 
then,  ethics  a  science  ?  This  question,  unfortu- 
nately, was  not  raised  by  Kant.  Had  it  occurred 
to  him  his  legacy  to  future  ages  would  scarcely 
have  included,  along  with  a  demonstration  of  the 
impossibility  of  metaphysics,  an  actual  metaphysic 
of  ethics.  But  the  errors  of  great  thinkers  are 
scarcely  less  instructive  than  theii*  perfect  achieve- 
ments. And  Kant's  critique  of  our  a  priori 
knowledge  suggests  the  kind  of  inquiry  from 
which  ethics  can  no  longer  be  withheld.  When, 
along  with  the  possibility  of  pure  mathematics 
and  physics,  he  asks.  How  is  metaphysics  in 
general  possible  ?  and.  How  is  metaphysics  as  a 
science  possible?  he  formulates  the  very  ques- 
tions which,  mutatis  mutandis,  the  history  of 
modern  ethics  and  the  logic  of  the  sciences  alike 
make  incumbent  upon  contemporary  moralists. 


Need  of  a  Critique, 


r  ! 


i( 


And  nntil  these  questions  on  the  possibility  of 
their  science  are  answered,  they  should  (to  ap- 
propriate Kant's  language)  be  solemnly  and 
legally  suspended  from  their  present  dubious  oc- 
cupation. 

It  may  be  objected,  however,  that  we  have 
prejudged  the  question  of  the  actual  existence  of 
ethics  as  a  science  in  accepting  the  adverse  jjWwa 
facie  evidence  drawn  from  the  number  and  the 
opposition  of  ethical  theories.  The  same  diver- 
sity, it  will  be  alleged,  is  found  in  other  sciences 
whose  validity  no  one  thinks  of  doubting.  In 
fact,  putting  aside,  on  the  one  hand,  the  purely 
observational  sciences  (if  there  be  any,  for  chem- 
istry is  no  longer  one),  in  which  demonstration 
has  not  begun,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  math- 
ematical sciences,  in  which  it  is  complete,  it  will 
be  hard  to  find  any  Intervening  science  which  is, 
and  has  been,  wholly  exempt  from  the  contradic- 
tions of  opposing  hypotheses.  In  natural  history, 
for  instance,  our  own  generation  has  "  assisted  " 
at  the  liveliest  disputations  concerning  the  nature 
and  origin  of  species ;  and  our  fathers  witnessed, 
in  the  domain  of  physics,  a  struggle  scarcely  less 
bitter  between  the  corpuscular  and  the  undulatory 
theories  of  light.  Mathematics  even  has  been 
in  the  past  the  scene  of  like  encounters  ;  for 


Methods  of  Ethics.  5 

thongli  the  analytical  geometry  of  Descartes  pre- 
vailed without  opposition,  a  fierce  wai'fare  was 
waged  over  the  coniparative  merits  of  the  fluxions 
of  Newton  and  the  calculus  of  Leibnitz.  And 
(to  have  done  with  illustration)  the  Ptolemaic 
and  the  Copernican  hypotheses  long  held  the 
field  together  as  rival  systems  in  astronomy. 
Yet,  in  the  face  of  such  radical  opposition  of 
theories,  it  was  never  maintained  that  the  sciences 
of  astronomy,  mathematics,  physics,  and  biology 
were  illusory,  or  even  impossible.  Should  not  the 
examples  bo  a  warning  to  us  against  inferring 
over-hastily  the  illegitimacy  of  ethical  science  ? 

And  yet  there  is  a  difference.  Those  oppo- 
sitions, as  we  know,  have  been  ultimately  set  at 
rest,  while  ethics  remains  the  scene  of  perpet- 
ual antinomies.  Where  the  controversies  have 
not  been  laid,  as,  for  instance,  in  political  econ- 
omy, the  legitimacy  of  the  science  has  actually 
been  denied.  To  ethics  alone  belongs  the  excep- 
tional prerogative  of  ranking  as  a  science  while 
retaining  for  subject-matter  the  still  unsettled 
questions  which  three-and-twenty  centuries  ago 
were  already  themes  of  discussion  among  the 
savants  of  the  Hellenic  world. 

What,  then,  constitv  tes  a  science  ?  If  this  can 
be  determined,  we  shaU  be  in  a  position  to  decide 


I 


Hi 


6  Whai  is  Science  f 

upon  the  scientific  pretensions  of  ethics.  We 
cannot  define  science,  however,  until  the  very 
point  at  issue  is  settled — whether  that  term  is  to 
denote,  along  with  the  various  branches  of  our 
systematic  knowledge  of  natural  phenomena  and 
their  quantitative  relations,  such  disciplines  as 
logic,  dialectic,  ethics,  and  metaphysics.  Certain- 
ly the  oldest  known  classification  of  the  sciences 
embraced  logic,  ethics,  and  physics.  And  apart 
from  the  sciences  themselves,  we  have  no  royal 
rule  of  exclusion  or  admission.  In  doubtful 
cases,  therefore,  the  only  course  open  to  us  is  to 
compare  the  branches  whose  scientific  character 
is  questioned,  with  others  whose  scientific  char- 
acter is  impeachable. 

First  of  all,  then,  following  the  ancient  classi- 
fication, ethics  may  be  compared  with  logic. 
Now,  logic  is  the  science  of  reasoning,  taking  that 
term  in  its  broadest  sense.  In  other  words,  it  is 
the  theory  of  the  ascertainment  of  reasoned  or 
inferred  truth.  It  does  not  undertake  to  find 
reasons,  but  to  determine  what  is  required  to  con- 
stitute them,  to  point  out  the  conditions  to  which 
all  facts  must  conform  in  order  that  they  may 
serve  as  proof  or  evidence.  But  these  conditions 
are  not  deduced  from  any  transcendent  source. 
They  are  simply  the  rules  which  men  observe  in 


M:. 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


We 

1  very 
n  is  to 
of  our 
la  and 
nes  as 
ertain- 
uiencea 
I  apart 
)  royal 
jubtful 
lis  is  to 
aracter 
c  char- 

;  classi- 
logic. 
ing  that 
(Is,  it  is 
)ned  or 
to  find 
to  con- 
0  which 
ey  may 
nditions 
source, 
serve  in 


the  reasonings  and  inferences  of  their  every-day 
life,  without  reflection,  or  even  without  distinct 
consciousness.  Logic,  accordingly,  gives  us  no 
new  information.  It  merely  makes  explicit  for 
reflection  what  was  already  implicit  in  cognition. 
But  our  stock  of  knowledge  is  not  increased  by 
an  analysis  of  tho  processes  whereby  it  has  been 
obtained.  My  syllogistic  reasonings,  my  assump- 
tion of  universal  causation,  my  deductive  and  ex- 
perimental investigations  may  proceed  now,  as 
they  did  originally,  in  utter  independence  of  a 
logical  formulation  of  them. 

Is  ethics,  now,  a  science  of  this  character? 
Some  analogy,  at  least,  lies  upon  the  surface. 
As  logic  analyzes  and  classifies  the  processes  of 
thought,  so  ethics  may  be  regarded  as  a  system- 
atic exhibition  of  the  phenomena  of  conscience. 
It  has  not  to  determine  of  itself  the  nature  of 
good  or  evil,  but  simply  to  observe,  collect,  and 
classify  the  moral  experience  of  mankind.  Its 
observations  should  be  true,  its  collections  ex- 
haustive, its  classifications  systematic.  The  re- 
sult, among  other  things,  would  include  a  list  of 
virtues,  such  as  temperance,  fortitude,  etc.,  or  a 
table  of  duties,  such  as  duties  to  friends,  to  the 
state,  to  humanity.  But  an  ethical  science  so  re- 
stricted, it  would,  I  think,  be  difficult,  if  not  im- 


r 


8 


Ethics  compared  with  Logic. 


*!  I 


possible,  to  find  anywhere  realized.  Moralists 
have  deemed  it  a  part  of  their  business  to  in- 
quire into  the  foundations  of  moral  judgments, 
and  even,  in  some  cases,  to  correct  and  improve 
them.  It  is  as  though  logicians  should  under- 
take to  establish,  or  even  to  remodel,  those  laws  of 
thought  which  they  have  hitherto  accepted  from 
the  general  consciousness  of  mankind.  Such  in- 
quiries no  more  belong  to  logic  than  an  inquiry 
into  the  nature  of  space  or  the  evidence  of  the 
axioms  belongs  to  geometry.  And  if  ethics  is  to 
take  rank  with  logic  as  a  science  of  pure  observa- 
tion and  analysis,  it  must  be  purged  of  these  ex- 
traneous questions  that  range  beyond  the  limits 
of  description  and  classification.  With  this  limi- 
tation of  its  subject-matter  would  come,  no  doubt, 
a  diminution  of  interest ;  since  it  has  been  pre- 
cisely by  the  problems  thus  excluded  that  morals 
have  always  fascinated  the  deepest  thinkers,  and 
withheld  them  (Aristotle  alone  excepted)  from  es- 
saying a  descriptive  ethics,  the  lack  of  which,  as 
when  Bacon  first  deplored  it,  we  must  still  make 
good  by  the  concrete  illustrations  of  dramatic 
poetry.  But  T  am  not  maintaining  that  ethics 
ehould  be  curtailed.  I  am  concerned  only  with 
its  scientific  character.  And  I  think  it  evident 
that,  though  ethics  may,  for  all  that,  bo  a  legiti- 


Methods  of  Ethics,  9 

mate  science,  It  cannot  claim  to  be  a  science  of 
the  same  type  as  logic,  without,at  least  foregoing 
the  problems  which  have  hithe'to  constituted  its 
principal  subject  matter. 

Can  ethics,  then,  be  likened  to  mathematics? 
Between  this  science  and  logic  there  are  striking 
points  of  contrast.  Mathematics  reasons  about 
real  existence  in  its  most  general  aspects  of  space 
and  time  and  number ;  logic  deals  only  v/ith  the 
empty  forms  of  reasoning.  Both  start  with  fun- 
damental principles  of  intelligence ;  but  the  pro- 
cedure in  one  case  is  anJytic,  in  the  other  syn- 
thetic. In  logic,  consequently,  there  is  no  subse- 
quent advance  upon  the  initial  laws  of  thought, 
with  which  everything  else  is  given  ;  but  in  math- 
ematics the  axioms  and  definitions  are,  by  con- 
structive imagination  or  synthetic  insight  into  new 
relations,  realized  into  a  body  of  demonstrations, 
which  are  not  less  certain  than  the  first  prin- 
ciples, but  of  which  these  gave  no  anticipation  or 
prophetic  hint.  A  real  science  thus  formed  by  the 
mind  out  of  its  own  resources,  in  utter  indepen- 
dence of  sense,  is  too  captivating  an  ideal  for  the 
genius  of  speculation  to  resist ;  and  it  has  been  the 
model  of  the  systems  at  least  of  Plato  and  Spinoza. 
Even  a  mind  so  sober  and  cautious  as  Locke's 
did  not  escape  the  fascination,  and  that,  too,  with 


IT 


V     ly 


lo  Ethics  compared  with  Mathematics, 

regard  to  ethics.  Though  he  never  undertook  the 
task,  and  when  urged  to  it,  late  in  life,  by  his 
friend  Molyneux,  declined  on  the  ground  of  a 
preference  for  the  practical  morals  of  the  New 
Testament,  Locke  nevertheless  tells  "s,  more  than 
once,  and  maintains,  in  accordance  with  his  doc- 
trine of  the  self-arclietypal  character  of  complex 
ideas,  that  the  rules  of  morality  may  be  demonstrat- 
ed in  the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same  evi- 
dence, as  the  propositions  of  geometry.  He  recog- 
nizes, as  compared  with  moral  ideas,  the  greater 
simplicity  of  mathematical  ideas,  and  their  repre- 
sentability  by  diagrams  or  other  sensible  marks  ; 
and  though  he  admits  this  gives  to  the  ideas  of 
quantity  a  real  practical  advantage,  and  has  made 
them  thought  more  capable  of  certainty  and  dem- 
onstration, he  yot  emphatically  reiterates  that 
"  from  self-evident  propositions  by  necessary  con- 
sequences, as  incontestable  as  those  in  mathematics, 
the  measures  of  right  and  wiong  might  be  made 
out  to  anyone  that  will  apply  himse)f  with  the  same 
indifferency  and  attention  to  the  one  as  he  does  to 
the  other  of  these  sciences."  What,  then,  are 
these  "  self-evident  propositions"  which  constitute 
the  foundations  of  our  duty  and  rules  of  action  ?  If 
we  look  for  anything  so  simple  and  evident  as  the 
axioms,  definitions,  and  postulates  of  geometry,  v;e 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


II 


shall  be  much  deceived.  Far  inDre  than  this  is 
included  in  those  first  principles  in  virtue  of  which 
morality  is  to  be  placed  amongst  the  sciences 
capable  of  demonstration.  They  comprise  "the 
idea  of  a  Supreme  Being,  infinite  in  power,  good- 
ness, and  wisdom,  whose  workmanship  we  are, 
and  on  whom  we  depend ;  and  the  idea  of  our- 
selves, as  understanding,  rational  beings." 

But  the  admission  of  even  such  principles  does 
not  assimilate  the  scientific  character  of  ethics  to 
that  of  mathematics.  It  seems  to  do  so  only  be- 
cause of  the  inveterate,  though  ungrounded,  habit 
of  regarding  mathematical  truths  as  deductions 
from  given  first  principles.  So  long  as  the  theo- 
rems of  geometry  and  algebra  are  imagined  to 
follow  from  the  axioms  and  definitions  with  the 
same  inner  necessity  as  a  syllogistic  conclusion 
from  its  major  and  minor  premises,  so  long  must 
the  procedure  of  mathematics  appear  applicable 
to  ethics  when  once  the  hotter  has  discovered  suit- 
able starting-points.  For  both  sciences  are  thus 
conceived  as  merely  specialized  forms  of  logic. 
This,  however,  is  to  overlook  precisely  the  essen- 
tial point.  If  ratiocination  in  ethics,  as  in  logic, 
gives  us  no  new  information,  leaving  us  in  the 
issue  exactly  where  we  stood  at  the  outset,  there 
is,   on  the  contrary,   in  the  demonstrations  of 


1 2       Locke  s  Mathematical  Method, 


!  ! 


mathematics  a  constant  advance  upon  previous 
attainment,  so  that  each  new  result  is  an  original 
addition  to  what  went  hefore,  not,  as  in  logic,  a 
mere  explication  of  it.  Every  mathematical  prop- 
osition, being  the  expression  of  a  fresh  insight, 
of  a  brand-new  perception  of  relations,  by  the 
synthetic  activity  of  the  mind,  has  its  voucher, 
not  in  antecedent  truths,  but  in  the  immediate 
affirmation  of  that  constructive  intelligence  by 
which  those  truths  in  continnous  regression  to  the 
axioms  have  been  evidenced  and  maintained.  It 
is  not,  therefore,  as  Locke  snpposed,  merely  a 
lack  of  first  principles  from  which  ethics  suffers 
in  comparison  with  mathematics.  Ethics  is  fatally 
handicapped  in  quite  a  different  way.  In  the 
spatial  relations,  e.g.^  with  which  geometry  deals, 
the  mind  has  the  power  (prior  to  sense-experi- 
ence, too)  of  making  intuitive  discoveries,  of  con- 
structing, as  it  were,  by  its  own  native  activity,  a 
genuine  science  (vvliich  is  afterwards  found  valid 
for  the  objects  of  perception).  The  geometer, 
accordingly,  knows  a  great  deal  more  about  the 
relations  of  space  than  the  rest  of  mankind  do. 
But  the  moralist  can  tell  us  nothing  new  about 
morality.  The  sciences  begun  by  Euclid  and 
Archimedes  have  been  so  extended  in  the  course 
of  eighty  generations  that  the  most  arduous  study 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


13 


of  a  lifetiine  often  fails  to  cover  the  range  of 
their  original  discoveries.  But  the  science  begun 
by  Socrates  is  still  unfounded  ;  and  every  school- 
boy knows  as  much  about  morals  as  the  greatest 
ethical  philosophers,  though  among  them  have 
been  included  the  noblest  geniuses  of  humanity. 
The  subject-matter  of  ethics  u^^^snot,  like  mathe- 
matics, admit  of  progressive  determination  by  the 
synthetic  intuition  of  the  mind.  And  the  rea- 
son, sincfc  Kant's  time,  is  not  far  to  seek.  Good- 
ness is  not,  like  space,  a  constitutive,  d priori  form 
of  our  sensuous  experience.  Any  new  proposi- 
tions you  make  about  it,  therefore,  can  never  be 
actualized  into  fact ;  they  remain  a  dialectical 
exercise,  or  eveii  a  play  of  words.  And  so  long 
as  that  is  so,  no  supply  of  first  principles  can  con- 
fer upon  ethics  the  scientific  character  of  mathe- 
matics ;  they  stand  as  widely  apart  as  analysis  of 
the  known  and  synthesis  of  the  unknown  ;  and  if 
you  persist  in  calling  them  both  demonstrative, 
you  must  not  overlook  the  vital  difference  that 
the  mathematician  demonstrates  by  direct  insight 
into  new  relations,  the  moralist  solely  by  unfold- 
ing what  is  already  taken  for  granted.  In  the 
nature  of  things,  therefore,  Locke's  M'ell-meant 
attempt  to  introduce  the  procedure  of  mathemat- 
ics into  ethics  was  doomed  to  miscarry. 


r 


f     ;ii; 


liiji 
i 
i 


14  Locke  s  First  Principles, 

It  follows,  too,  that  in  the  analytic  deduction 
of  moral  rules  from  Locke's  first  principles — the 
idea  of  a  Supreme  Being,  on  whom  we  depend,  and 
of  ourselves  as  rational  beings — the  difficulties  at- 
taching to  our  conception  of  moral  rules  are  not 
removed,  but  simply  refunded  into  the  assumed 
first  principles.  If  they  are  not  immediately  vis- 
ible there  it  is  only  because  the  assumptions  are 
so  much  vaster  than  this  particular  application  of 
them  that  our  special  problem  is  overshadowed 
by  the  larger  issues  to  which  its  solution  has 
given  rise.  But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show 
that  the  debated  points  of  morals  cannot  be  made 
to  disappear,  even  at  the  theistic  point  of  view. 
And  it  is  a  matter  of  history  that  theistic  moral- 
ists fall  into  the  sanje  ethical  antagonisms  as  the 
sceptics  do.  Faley  and  Butler,  Edwards  and  Kant, 
are,  in  some  respects,  as  fundamental  oppositions 
as  the  whole  history  of  ethics  presents. 

I^or  is  the  fact  really  surprising.  For  the  idea 
of  a  Supreme  Being,  on  whom  man  depends,  con- 
tains no  information  about  man's  moral  nature, 
or  the  end  of  his  conduct,  or  his  specific  duties 
and  obligations.  You  cannot  deduce  from  that 
idea  the  character  of  conscience  or  will ;  it  does 
not  supply  you  with  a  standard  of  morality ;  it 
does  not  show  you  in  particular  cases  what  you 


'H! 


m\ 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


15 


oufflit  to  do.  It  is  an  extraneous  form,  into  which 
yon  pour  the  whole  ethical  content,  be  that  con- 
tent wliat  it  may.  Morality  is  not  a  deduction 
from  theism,  but  theism  a  superinduction  upon 
morality.  It  is  only  by  observation,  analysis,  and 
reflection  we  can  discover  wherein  man's  moral 
life  consists.  And  the  results  thus  experientially 
established  would  never  have  been  mistaken  for 
deductions,  had  men  kept  in  view  tlie  distinction 
between  knowledge  and  the  sapposed  vouchers 
of  it,  between  the  ratio  cognoscendi  and  the  al- 
leged ratio  essendi.  The  idea  of  a  Supi-eme 
Being  is  not,  nor  can  it  be  (as  Locke  held),  the 
ratio  cognoscendi  of  morality.  Whether  it  can  be 
the  ratio  essendi  is  another  point  which  we  need 
not  here  discuss,  but  which,  though  granted, 
would  be  a  fruitless  admission  in  the  face  of  scep- 
tical and  agnostic  science.  Theological  ethics 
cannot  get  under  way  at  all  without  proving  the 
existence  of  God  ;  but  neither  that  nor  any  other 
superior  principle  can  endow  ethics  with  the 
demonstrative  character  of  mathematics. 

It  has  now  been  shown  that  ethics  is  not  a 
science  of  the  type  of  logic  or  mathematics.  The 
next  thing  is  to  compare  it  with  the  natural  and 
historical  sciences.  If  its  scientific  character  pre- 
sents no  analogy  or  only  a  partial  analogy  to 


.1 


1 6     Ethics  and  the  Natural  Sciences. 

theirs,  then  notliing  remains  bnt  to  point  out  its 
unique  natiu'e,  and  inquire  finally  whether  etliics 
be  not  less  a  science  than  a  branch  of  speculation  ? 
In  the  meantime,  however,  we  must  not  forget, 
and  may  derive  hope  fiom,  the  current  fashion 
of  identifying  the  science  of  morals  with  the 
sciences  of  nature.  Though  mathematical  ethics 
be  .",  vision,  who  shall  say  that  physical  ethics  may 
not  become  an  actuality  ? 

The  sciences  of  nature  have  been  classified  as 
deductive  or  experimental.  Originally  they  weie 
all  experimental  ;  their  laws  expressing  only 
those  particular  nniformitic?  which  observation 
and  experiment  showed  to  exist,  but  giving  no 
reasons  for  their  existence.  Such  an  empirical 
law  we  have,  e.g.^  in  the  tendency  of  hot  water 
to  break  glass.  Now,  when  the  particular  em- 
pirical laws  of  a  science  can  be  brought  into  re- 
lation to  more  general  laws,  seen  to  be  special 
applications  of  them,  and  so  deducible  from  them, 
that  science  passes  from  the  experimental  to  the 
deductive  sta^/  The  cracking  of  glass  by  hot 
water,  for  example,  takes  its  place  as  a  phenom- 
enon of  deductive  science  as  soon  as  it  has  been 
shown  that  heat  tends  to  expand  all  substances, 
that  the  crack  is  due  to  the  expansion  of  the 
heated  portion  in  spite  of  the  adjacent  cooler  por- 


if 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


17 


tion,  and  that  no  crack  would  have  occurred  had 
tho  heat  been  equally  diffused  as  in  tliin  glass 
vessels  through  which  it  passes  rapidly.  The 
illustration  suggests  that  deductive  science,  hav- 
ing apprehended  the  reasons  of  phenomena,  may 
be  able  to  predict  their  occurrence ;  and  every- 
body is  acquainted  with  the  sublime  prophetic 
achievements  of  astronomy.  This  power  of  pre- 
diction clearly  marks  off  the  deductive  from  the 
experimental  sciences.  And  so  much  being 
premised,  we  are  now  prepared  for  the  inquiry 
whether  ethics  belongs  to  either  division  ?  If  it 
be  of  the  same  general  type  as  the  sciences  of 
nature,  it  must  be  either  a  deductive  or  an  experi- 
mental science. 

In  assigning  ethics  to  either  of  these  classes, 
however,  one  assumption  is  made  too  significant 
to  pass  without  distinct  mention.  The  sciences  of 
nature  all  rest  upon  the  presupposition  that  events 
i  idlow  one  another  in  a  fixed  and  regular  order, 
that  the  same  cause  under  the  same  circumstances 
always  produces  the  same  effects,  that  the  entire 
realm  of  natural  phenomena  is  subject  to  the 
reign  of  inexorable  law.  Deny  the  principle  of 
universal  causation,  and  natural  science  is  smitten 
with  paralysis.  Yo'7  may  be  in  doubt  about  the 
proof  of  the  principle ;  you  may  attempt  to  for- 


I  ! 


i  ! 


ill! 


HI 


i8 


The  Law  of  Causation. 


tify  its  validity  by  djyi'ioH  deduction,  like  Kant, 
or  by  observation,  like  Mill,  or  you  may,  like 
Lotze,  confess  it  is  the  iiidcnionstiable  postulate 
of  all  our  knowledge ;  but  you  cannot  for  a  mo- 
ment fail  to  see  that  the  law,  however  it  may 
be  established,  is  indispensable  to  the  natural 
and  physical  sciences,  which  presuppose  it  at 
every  step. 

Now,  to  say  that  ethics  is  a  science  of  the  same 
type  as  botany  or  astronomy  is  to  assert  that  the 
methods  of  investigation  applicable  to  the  latter 
are  equally  suited  to  the  former,  and  consequently 
that  constancy  of  causation,  which  is  the  founda- 
tion of  those  methods,  nmst  obtain  among  moral 
phenomena  with  the  same  rigorous  invariability 
as  among  the  events  of  nature.  Kor  can  anj'onc 
at  all  alive  to  the  drift  of  contemporary  thought 
and  culture  have  failed  to  observe  the  prevalent 
acceptance  of  this  determinism,  especially  on  the 
part  of  the  ever  increasing  innnber  of  scientific 
inquiroi's.  Schopenhauer,  indeed,  erected  the 
dogma  into  a  test  of  mental  vigor,  and  maintained, 
with  characteristic  asperity  and  assurance,  that 
none  but  intellectual  dwarfs  could  be  libertaiians. 
At  the  present  day  the  triumphant  reign  of 
physical  science  has  begotten  a  distrust  in  meta- 
physical ethics;  and  men  have  turned  tlicir  gaze 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


19 


from  the  iionineiial  freedom  in  wliicli  Kant  found 
tlio  sine  qua  own  of  duty,  to  look  for  a  basis  of 
morality  in  the  sensible  facts  of  the  phenomenal 
world.  And  it  is  really  claimed  that,  after  the 
lapse  of  so  many  barren  centuries  of  ethical  logom- 
achy, the  science  of  morals  has  at  last  been  set 
upon  an  immovable  foundation  through  the  dis- 
covery that  human  conduct  is  subject  to  necessary 
relations  of  cause  and  effect,  from  which  all  moral 
rules  are  ultimately  deduced. 

This  bold  reconstruction  of  ethics  on  the  law  of 
universal  causation,  after  the  model  of  a  deductive 
science  like  astronomy,  has  been  attempted  by 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Unfortunately,  however, 
of  Mr.  Spencer's  promised  "Principles  of  Mo- 
rality," only  the  first  part — the  "Data of  Ethics" 
— has  yet  appeared;  and  this  instalment,  though 
postulating  for  ethics  an  immediate  evolution,  like 
that  which  in  the  course  of  centuries  transformed 
empirical  into  rational  astronomy,  does  not  de- 
monstrate the  possibility  of  such  a  development, 
still  less  accomplish  it,  or  even  make  its  accom- 
plishment very  credible  to  anyone  who  can  re- 
sist the  contai'ion  of  the  evolutionist's  scientific 
optimism.  "When  tlie  work  is  completed,  it  will 
be  easier  to  judge  how  far  Mr.  Spencer  has  suc- 
ceeded in  deducing  moral  rules  from  first  ])rinci- 


^  I' 


'  i 


:!': 


20  Mr,  Spencer's  Demonstrative  Method, 

pies.  In  tlio  meantime,  one  wlio  sees  in  the  un- 
dertaking merely  a  repetition  of  tlie  frnitlces 
attempt  of  Locke  may  be  allowed  to  recall 
Hume's  deprecation  of  the  application  of  deduc- 
tion to  ethics  on  the  ground  that  this  method, 
though  in  itself  more  perfect,  was  less  suited  to 
the  imperfection  of  human  nature,  and  was  a 
common  source  of  illusion  and  mistake  in  this  as 
well  as  in  other  subjects.  But  whatever  the 
future  may  disclose  regarding  the  deducibility  of 
rules  of  conduct,  it  is  clear  that  deductive  ethics, 
if  it  is  to  be  a  science,  must  not  start  with  as- 
sumptions unwarranted  by,  or  even  opposed  to,  the 
common-sense  of  mankind.  The  first  principles 
of  astronomy  and  physics  are  indisputable;  if 
ethics  is  to  take  rank  witii  them,  its  first  principles 
must  be  equally  axiomatic.  But  Mr.  Spencer, 
under  the  influence  of  what  Mill  has  called  an  d 
jpriori  fallacy,  the  offspring  of  hedonism  and 
utilitarianism,  lays  the  foundation  of  his  science 
of  rational,  deductive,  absolute  ethics  in  the  dog- 
matic identification  of  goodness  with  pleasure. 
He  holds  it  "  to  be  the  business  of  moral  science 
to  deduce,  from  the  laws  of  life  and  the  condi- 
tions of  existence,  what  kinds  of  action  necessarily 
tend  to  produce  happiness,  and  what  kinds  to  pro- 
duce unhappiness.     Having  done  this,  its  dednc- 


"m 


iii  III 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


91 


tions  are  to  be  recognized  as  laws  of  conduct." 
But  that  moral  rules  have  no  other  foundation 
than  their  felicific  consequences  is  so  far  from 
self-evident,  so  foreign  to  popular  thought  and 
modes  of  expression,  to  say  nothing  of  moral 
philosophy,  that  the  proposition  could  only 
emerge  as  a  final  result,  not  stand  as  the  first 
datum,  of  a  truly  scientific  ethics.  Accordingly, 
the  scientific  character  of  morals — arid  it  is  that 
we  are  now  investigating — will  not  be  affected  by 
the  contingent  issues  of  Mr.  Spencer's  venture- 
some enterprise.  Should  ho,  like  Locke,  fail  in 
his  promised  deduction  of  rules  of  conduct,  the  so- 
called  *^  national  ethics"  will  have  lost  its  doughti- 
est champion  ;  should  he  succeed,  his  deductions 
will  afford  no  proof  of  the  evolution  of  empirical 
into  rational  ethics  until  it  has  first  been  estab- 
lished that  the  logical  movement  has  really  been 
in  the  ethical  sphere — that  is,  until  it  has  been 
shown  that  the  counsels  of  prudence  and  precepts 
of  utility,  which  he  professes  to  have  deduced 
from  the  laws  of  life  and  the  conditions  of  exist- 
ence, are  synonymous  with  the  moral  laws  intui- 
tively recognized  by  mankind.  But  this,  unfor- 
tunately, has  been  a  quoBstio  vexata  since  the  very 
beginning  of  moral  philosophy,  and  it  is  ap- 
parently no  nearer  settlement  to-day  than  at  its 


iJ! 


r 


1^1  111 


lii 


22 


Empirical  Ethics. 


first  discussion  between  the  yontlif iil  Socrates  and 
the  venerable  Protagoras,  when,  in  the  whirl  of 
debate,  the  protagonists  were  unwittingly  carried 
round  to  opposite  sides,  and  each  was  in  the  issue 
amazed  to  find  himself  attacking  the  position  he 
deemed  impregnable  and  espousing  the  cause  he 
repudiated  as  false. 

But  there  are,  as  we  have  seen,  two  types  of 
the  sciences  of  nature — the  deductive  and  the 
empirical — represented  respectively  by  astrono- 
my and  botany.  And  if  at  present  ethics  cannot 
claim  to  rank  with  the  deductive,  may  it  not 
at  least  find  a  place  among  the  natural  sciences 
of  t}ie  empirical  kind  ?  Failing  to  justify  this 
position,  ethics,  it  would  seem,  nmst  be  stripped 
of  its  scientific  pretensions,  and  banished  to  that 
dim  region  of  ontological  abstractions  which  ag- 
nostic metaphysicians  keep  for  their  gnostic  rivals 
— a  limbo  of  iiitellectual  inanities,  of  ghosts  of 
human  speculation  {vanitaa  vanitatum\  which, 
like  the  unaccomplished  works  of  nature,  re- 
mains forever  "  abortive,  monstrous,  or  unkindly 
mixed." 

There  is,  however,  reason  to  believe  that  physical 
ethics,  empirical  if  not  deductive,  is  by  no  means 
an  impossibility.  It  is  certain  that,  apart  from 
Mr.  Spe.jcer,  this  is  the  method  of  ethics  generally 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


23 


adopted  by  the  evolutionists.  Eschewing  every  at- 
tempt to  deduce  moral  rules  for  the  guidance  of 
conduct,  they  institute  an  inquiry  into  the  origin 
of  that  morality  by  which  human  life  is  actually 
regulated.  It  is  not  their  business  to  tell  men  how 
they  should  act,  or  to  supply  them  with  motives  for 
originating  or  principles  for  regulating  their  be- 
havior, still  less  to  mete  ont  esteem  and  afPec- 
tion  or  hatred  and  contempt  upon  what  may  be 
considered  the  estimable  or  the  blameable  quali- 
ties of  men.  On  the  contrary,  their  aim  is 
purely  theoretical.  They  seek  only  the  genesis  )f 
those  moral  notions,  beliefs,  and  practices,  which 
constitute  an  obvious  phenomenon  of  the  life 
of  man.  As  there  is  an  anatomy  of  the  body, 
which  resolves  limbs  into  tissues  and  tissues 
into  cells,  and  a  physiology,  that  represents  the 
modes  in  which  the  functions  of  the  body  are  per- 
formed, so  there  may  be  a  physiology  and  anat- 
omy of  conscience,  to  inquire  into  its  operations, 
to  dissect  complex  moral  phenomena  into  simple 
elements,  and  finally,  under  the  guidance  of 
evolution,  to  track  these  elements  to  their  last 
hiding-place  in  the  physical  constitution  and  en- 
vironment of  the  lower  animals.  The  natural 
history  of  moral  phenomena  may  still  be  unwrlt- 
tea ;  but  if  it  be  true,  as  logicians  tell  us,  that 


l"il 


|i;iii 


ill  Hi 


iUill!!i 


m^ 


24      Analogy  with  Physical  Science, 

any  facts  which  follow  one  another  according  to 
constant  laws  are  in  themselves  fitted  to  be  a  sub- 
ject of  science,  why  deny  the  scientific  character 
of  an  investigation  whose  ideal  is  to  follow  tlie 
development  of  morality  from  its  earliest  rudi- 
ments and  to  ascertain  the  order  of  antecedence 
and  consequence  in  the  series  of  intervening 
phenomena  ?  Physical  ethics,  based  on  the  law 
o^:  universal  causation,  applies  to  morality  the 
same  method  of  investigation  as  biology  has  used 
for  the  elucidation  of  the  true  relations  of  the 
phenomena  of  life  ;  and  on  whatever  ground  we 
term  the  one  a  science,  the  other  would  seem 
entitled  to  the  same  appellation. 

Nevertheless  there  is  a  striking  difference,  if 
not  in  the  intrinsic  character,  in  the  external  con- 
dition of  these  two  sciences.  Biology,  as  natural 
history  of  life,  is  an  achievement ;  physical  ethics, 
as  natural  history  of  morals,  is  a  dream.  It  may 
be  that  the  aspiration  of  the  scientific  moralist  is 
a  genuine  prophecy,  that  his  vision  is  an  inspira- 
tion of  the  faculty  divine ;  but  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  in  the  meantime  his  ideal  of  a  science 
of  ethics  is  unrealized.  And  this  negative  in- 
stance is  sufficiently  striking  to  give  pause  to  our 
scientific  enthusiasm. 

Let  us  consider  the  matter  a  little  more  closely. 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


25 


It  will  be  conceded  that,  so  far  as  observation 
and  classification  go,  moral  phenomena  are  not 
less  manageable  than  biological ;  and  in  this  re- 
spect both  sciences  stand  on  the  same  level  as 
logic  and  psychology.  At  the  next  stage,  how- 
ever, a  difference  emerges.  After  biological 
phenomena  have  been  noted  and  grouped,  they 
may  be  resolved  into  simpler  elements,  as  the  tis- 
sue, e.g..^  into  cells.  And  in  chemistry,  though 
obviously  not  iu  biology,  it  is  possible  to  verify 
the  analysis  by  a  reproduction  of  the  complex 
through  synthesis  of  its  resultant  elements.  But 
moral  phenomena  are  not  susceptible  of  a  similar 
analysis.  Every  resolution  of  morality,  or  of  any 
part  of  it,  info  something  else  must  needs  be  arti- 
ficial and  arbitrary.  You  do  not  here  know  what 
is  simple  and  what  compound.  In  this  respect 
ethics  falls  behind  even  psychology  in  its  amena- 
bility to  scientific  methods.  The  psychologist, 
starting  from  the  side  of  objective  science,  is  wont 
to  take  sensition  as  his  datum,  and  from  that 
stand-point  is  justified  in  regarding  it  as  better 
known  than  any  other  mental  experience ;  so  that 
an  explanation  of  the  higher  intellectual  pro- 
cesses and  products  may  always  be  given  by  re- 
solving them  into  this  datum,  as  when  Hobbes, 
following  Aristotle,  describes  imagination  as  "  de- 


fir 

!  i 


^■m 


t  11 


26  Comparison  with  Biology, 

cajing  sense."  Ueyond  sensation,  psychology  does 
not  go  ;  but  psycho-physics  shows  that  an  appar- 
ently simple  sensation  is  itself  made  np  of  ele- 
ments— Leibnitz's  j)etites percej)tions — which  may 
be  expressed  for  science  in  terms  of  the  stimuli 
in  which  they  originate.  But  this  regressive 
analysis  of  the  more  complex  into  the  lees  com- 
plex, until  indecomposable  factors  are  at  last 
reached,  cannot  be  applied  to  moral  phenomena 
without  making  arbitrary  and  unwarrantable  as- 
sumptions. This  limitation  of  ethics,  inherent  in 
its  subject-matter,  is  constantly  overlooked  ;  and 
to  the  ignoring  of  it  is  due  the  diverse  and  mut- 
ually confuting  systems  of  derivative  morals. 

The  farther  we  remove  from  simple  observa- 
tion and  classification,  the  greater  is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  scientific  character  of  ethics 
and  biology.  And  to  the  disadvantage  aheady 
noticed  we  have  now  to  add  another,  which  goes 
to  the  very  root  of  the  matter  in  hand,  and 
seems  to  negate  the  possibility  of  turning  the 
ideal  of  physical  ethics  into  an  actuality.  When 
the  biologist,  besides  dissecting  complex  phenom- 
ena into  their  elements,  also  demonstrates  in  a 
long  series  of  forms,  existent  or  extinct,  the  grad- 
ual building  up  of  the  complex  organisms  out  of 
the  simpler  (by  means,  as  he  believes,  of  natural 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


27 


selection),  he  appeals,  not  to  imagination,  but  to 
observation ;  for  the  successive  growths  are  act- 
ually open  to  view  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  or 
in  its  fossiliferous  strata.  He  may  be  wrong  in 
his  explanation  of  the  process  of  development — 
and  it  is  not  improbable  that  natural  selection  is 
not  the  only  or  even  the  chief  agency ;  but  about 
the  existence  of  a  series  of  related  forms  that 
have  followed  one  another  through  the  lapse  of 
vast  geological  epochs  there  cannot  bo  a  particle 
of  doubt.  With  our  scientific  moralist,  however, 
the  case  is  absolutely  different.  I  do  not  mean 
merely  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  connections  be- 
tween moral  phenomena  ;  for  facts  may  become 
the  subject  of  science  though  the  laM-s  of  their 
sequence  be  undiscovered  or  even  beyond  the 
reach  of  discovery  by  our  existing  resources. 
But  without  the  facts  themselves  there  csi  be  no 
science.  And  it  is  the  misfortune  of  the  scien- 
tific type  of  ethics  we  are  now  investigating  that 
the  phases  of  morality  it  binds  together  in  its 
theory  of  development  are,  when  not  a  part  of 
human  history,  purely  imaginary.  We  know 
nothing  about  the  morals  of  the  first  species  that 
ceased  to  be  non-moral.  From  structural  affinities 
and  rudiments  the  naturalist  may  trace  the 
genealogy  of  man  and  reconstruct  his  simian  or 


m  I 


!i 


«  VM 


I! 


28    Ethics  not  a  Science  like  Biology, 

pre-simian  ancestors ;  but  what  material  is  tliere 
for  determining  their  morals — what  but  the  indi- 
vidual preconceptions  of  the  inquirer?  And  of 
tlie  morality  of  even  our  own  race,  in  its  pre-his- 
toric  stage,  we  are  in  similar  ignorance.  What 
marks  of  virtue,  e.g.^  do  you  find  in  the  shape,  or 
size,  or  cubic  capacity  of  the  Neanderthal  skull  ? 
There  is  no  fossil  pi^e-human  unorality.  And 
for  lack  of  it  the  ideal  of  physical  ethics  remains 
unrealized. 

The  outlook  for  the  "  science  "  of  ethics  grows 
less  promising  at  every  new  survey.  With  which- 
ever of  the  sciences  we  compare  it,  some  reason 
emerges  for  excluding  it  from  them.  Its  data  do 
not  carry  it  back  with  biology  to  the  dawn  of 
life.  It  is  not,  like  mathematics,  synthetic  and 
demonstrative.  And  if  it  is  to  take  rank  with 
logic,  it  must  forego  every  function  except 
classification  and  observation,  and  be  content  to 
pass  rather  as  a  formal  discipline  than  a  real 
science. 

Perhaps,  however,  we  have  been  over-hasty  in 
rejecting  physical  ethics,  or,  rather,  the  physical 
method  of  ethics.  Though  in  its  extant  form  of 
an  imaginary  development  of  moral  from  im- 
aginary pre- moral  phenomena  it  overleaps  itself 
and,  with  vaulting  ambition,  falls  to  the  other  side, 


Methods  of  Ethics, 


29 


it  is  not  inconceivable  that  the  method  might  be 
so  applied  as  to  produce  a  genuine  science,  but 
of  narrower  limits  in  space  and  time  than  current 
evolutionary  ethics  is  wont  to  set.  Such  re- 
strictions are  given,  indeed,  in  the  very  subject- 
matter  of  ethics.  For  moral  phenomena  imply 
moral  beings  ;  and  since,  as  Darwin  himself  tells 
us,  "  a  moral  being  is  one  who  is  capable  of  com- 
paring his  past  and  future  actions  or  motives,  and 
of  approving  or  disapproving  of  them,"  and  "  we 
have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  of  the  lower 
animals  have  this  capacity,"  it  follows  that  the 
science  of  morals  should  take  cognizance  only  of 
"  man,  who  alone,"  as  Darwin  emphatically  adds, 
"  can  with  certainty  be  ranked  as  a  moral  being." 
There  is,  therefore,  nothing  to  carry  the  scien- 
tific moralist  out  of  the  human  sphere.  It  is 
different  with  the  biologist.  The  human  hand  is 
constructed  on  the  same  pattern  as  the  hand  of  a 
monkey,  or  the  foot  of  a  horse,  or  the  wing  of  a 
bat ;  and  the  human  embryo  is  at  first  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  embryo  of  a  dog,  or  seal, 
or  reptile ;  so  that  any  scientific  explanation  of 
man's  bodily  organism  is  in.idequrite,  \i  not  iiii- 
pnssiblc,  witliont  rcfcrcnc^e  to  tiie  lower  animals. 
lUit  in  ethics  such  reference  seems  little  less  than 
a  vain  panide.      You   may  of  courtc  study  the 


so 


lis  7 heme  Limited  io  Man, 


psjcliical  attributes  of  tlie  dog  or  the  elephant,  and 
this  is  a  field  much  in  need  of  cultivation  ;  but 
liowcvcr  rich  your  harvest  of  observations,  you 
will  be  no  whit  nearer  the  origin  of  human  r,  o- 
rality  so  long,  at  least,  as  conscience  contiiuies  the 
unique  prerogative  of  man,  the  only  moral  being 
we  know.  Even  if  you  imagine  a  moral  sense  in 
the  higher  brutes,  your  descriptive  ethics,  though 
acquiring  thereby  a  comparative  character,  would 
bo  as  far  as  ever  from  that  genesis  of  man's  mo- 
rality which  evolutionary  moralists  profess  to  ex- 
plain in  their  theories  of  physical  ethics.  Accord- 
ingly, the  scientific  moralist,  instead  of  roaming 
comprehensively  over  the  fields  of  animal  life, 
must  brood  intensely  at  the  altar-fires  of  the  hu- 
man heart.  However  deep  the  mysteries  of 
man's  moral  nature,  no  irradiating  light  falls 
upon  them  from  the  non-moral  world  without. 
The  moral  being  is  more  than  the  child  of  nature  ; 
lie  is  the  member  of  a  kingdom  where  time  and 
space  ai-e  not.  Yet  is  virtue  not  withholden  from 
scientific  survey,  since  its  manifestations  fall  in 
time  and  constitute  a  part  of  the  history  of  hu- 
manity. And  if  ethics,  instead  of  groping  through 
the  void,  impalpable  inane  of  fictitious  pre-human 
moralit}^,  would  in  good  earnest  describe  historic 
morality  in  all  its  fixed  and  changing  characters, 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


31 


tracing  the  evolution  of  moral  ideals  and  institu- 
tions from  their  earliest  to  their  present  form, 
then  its  scientific  character,  which  is  to-day  a 
reproach,  would  be  firmly  established,  and  it 
could  claim  to  be  a  science  as  unimpeachable  as 
any  other  branch  of  history.  Some  such  ideal 
doubtless  floated  before  the  minds  of  those 
writers  who  saw  in  ethics  a  comparative  and  evo- 
hitionary  anatomy  and  physiology  of  morals  ;  but 
the  associations  of  natural  history  led  them  to  sub- 
stitute the  whole  extent  and  duration  of  organic 
life,  which  is  essentially  without  moral  character, 
for  the  narrow  and  brief  history  of  mankind,  in 
vrhich  alone  moral  phenomena  are  actually  found. 
Here  then,  at  last,  we  have  an  answer  to  the 
question,  Ilow  is  ethics  as  a  science  possible  ? 
If  it  is  ever  to  rise  above  the  analytic  proceaure 
of  logic,  it  can  only  be  by  becoming  one  of  the 
historical  sciences.  Given  the  earliest  morality 
of  which  we  have  anv  written  record,  to  trace 
from  it  through  progressive  stages  the  morality  of 
to-day :  that  is  the  problem,  and  the  only  prob- 
lem which  can  fall  to  a  truly  scientijio  ethics. 
The  discovery  ol:  these  historical  sequences  con- 
stitutes the  peculiarity  of  the  science,  which,  like 
every  other,  presupposes  observation,  analysis,  and 
classification.     Whenever  a  system  of  ethics  pro- 


!'t  I 


32         Ethics  a  Branch  of  History. 

fesses  to  be  a  science  of  any  other  type,  whether 
of  tlie  physical  or  the  inatliematical,  it  is  setting 
up  its  own  speculations  for  facts,  and  imposing 
upon  us  a  dogmatism  for  which  no  shibboleth 
can  atone,  be  that  shibboleth  intuitional  or  utili- 
tarian, absolutist  or  relativist,  pro-  or  anti-evolu- 
tionary. 

This  conclusion  cannot  be  other  than  unac- 
ceptable at  a  time  when  philosophical  schools, 
differing  so  widely  in  theory,  have  agreed  in  the 
practice  of  producing  and  reading  innumerable 
works  on  "  moral  science^'*  or  the  "  science  of 
ethics  "  as  it  is  now  more  generally  designated. 
And  yet  the  conclusion  is  inevitable.  I  dare 
not  say,  as  Buckle  used  to  say  categorically  of  a 
very  different  proposition,  what  makes  it  so  pe- 
culiarly offensive  is,  that  it  is  impossible  to  refute 
it.  But,  assuredly,  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine  how 
it  can  be  disproved.  Range,  in  fancy,  over  the 
whole  circle  of  the  sciences,  and  you  will  find 
there  no  place  for  ethics  save  as  a  brand  1  of 
human  history.  Whatever  else  has  been  as- 
signed it,  belongs  not  to  science,  but  to  specula- 
tion ;  and  is  none  the  less  speculation  because 
carried  on  by  professed  scientists.  Putting  aside 
the  inquiry  into  the  faculties  or  functions  of  the 
mind,  which  is  plainly  a  ])art  of  psychology,  think 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


33 


but  for  a  moment  of  some  of  the  questions  dis- 
cussed in  current  treatises  on  tlio  "scieuce  of 
ethics."  "What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  Is  the 
will  free  or  determined  ?  Is  conscience  innate  or 
acquired?  Is  moral  law  absolute  or  relative? 
How  did  morality  first  come  into  existence  ?  Is 
there  any  other  good  than  pleasure  ?  This  is  a 
sample,  and  but  a  sample,  of  the  problems  which 
moralists  complacently  include  in  what  they  desig- 
nate ethical  science.  To  questions  like  these  an- 
swers are  unhesitatingly  given,  even  by  agnostics, 
who  know  that  we  cannot  know  anything  but 
phenomena.  Manifestly  the  age  which  has  wit- 
nessed the  divorce  of  science  and  speculation  in 
physics,  biology,  and  even  psychology,  has  not  in 
ethics  succeeded  in  keeping  them  asunder.  And 
ethics  will  never  rank  as  a  positive  science  until, 
following  the  lead  of  jurisprudence  and  ethnol- 
ogy, it  exorcise  the  spirit  of  speculation,  and 
enthrone  the  spirit  of  history  as  it  is  reflected  in 
the  cognate  investigations  of  Maine  and  Tliering, 
of  Tylor,  Letourneau,  and  McLennan. 

I  do  not  deny  the  possibility  of  a  philosophy  of 
morals,  or  even  of  law  or  of  culture.  On  the 
contrary,  I  am  convinced  that  every  positive 
science — chemistry,    physics,    and    mathematics 

equally  with  jurisprudence  and  ethics — leads  up 
8 


I 


§ 


34     Scientific  and  Speculative  Ethics, 

inevitably  to  a  nrpmr7\  <f>i\o<To^iay  towards  which  I 
am  so  far  from  assuming  an  indifference  that  I 
liold,  witli  Kant,  such  indifference  an  impossi- 
bility to  hnman  nature,  and  tlioso  who  profess  it 
mnconscious,  instead  of  conscious,  metaphysicians. 
But  I  am  sure  facts  and  science  must  precede  theo- 
ries and  philosophy.  And  the  facts  with  which  tlie 
moralist  has  to  deal  seem  to  nie,  not  merely  more 
complex,  but  infinitely  more  numerous  and  varied* 
than  is  generally  supposed.  Just  as  philology  was 
retarded  for  centuries  by  the  dogma  that  Hebrew 
was  the  parent  of  all  human  languages,  so  ethical 
science  is  now  hampered  by  the  assumption  that 
its  subject-matter  can  be  found  in  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  the  individual  alone.  Fr  'lat  moral 
consciousness  is  but  the  reflex  of  particniar  social 
conditions,  and,  like  them,  has  had  a  history  which 
needs  to  be  traced.  Nor  is  it  at  any  stage  of  its 
development  exactly  the  same  as  another  moral 
consciousness,  imder  other  skies,  at  other  lati- 
tudes, in  different  environments,  and  within  differ- 
ent civilizations.  Moral  phenomena  may  vary  as 
dialects  vary,  and  until  those  varieties  are  observed 
and  compared,  and  their  developments  followed 
out,  anything  like  a  philosophy  of  morals  is  im- 
possible. Ethics,  as  the  comparative  history  of 
universal  morality,  is  the  vestibule  to  the  temple 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


35 


of 

lie 


of  monil  philosophy.  And  whoso  undergoes  not 
'purifications  and  offers  sacrifices  there  nnist  not 
profane  with  sacrilegious  step  the  inner  courts  of 
the  sanctuary. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  clear  distinction  between 
what  we  may  call  ethical  science  and  moral  philos- 
ophy. The  one  is  a  branch  of  history,  the  other  of 
speculation.  They  stand  in  the  same  relation  as 
the  science  of  geometry  to  the  philosophy  of  space 
and  the  axioms.  But  their  development  has  been 
far  from  analo  50U8.  Geometry  has  been  built  up 
without  regard  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  space 
and  the  validity  of  the  axioms :  such  speculations 
proved  less  attra'  live  than  the  theorems  and  prob- 
lems of  the  science.  But  as  morals  touch  the  most 
vital  points  of  human  life,  man's  practical  inter- 
est in  their  origin  and  validity  has  overcome  his 
theoretical  interest  in  the  history  of  their  growth ; 
and  we  are  presented  with  the  striking  anomaly 
of  a  science  still  unfounded  from  philosophic 
absorption  in  its  first  principles.  It  is  obvious, 
however,  that  a  philosophy  without  science  is  as 
empty  as  theory  without  fact,  as  unconvincing  as 
reason  without  the  voucher  of  sensuous  experience. 

The  achievements  of  modern  science  in  every 
department  of  inquiry,  and  the  influence  of  con- 
temporary positivism,  could  not  fail  to  react  upon 


^6         Current  Ethics  Speculative, 

etliics.  But  although  ethics  has  been  taken  in 
hand  by  men  of  science,  its  character  has  not,  I 
conceive,  become  scientific.  With  some  abate- 
ment one  dogmatic  system  has  merely  been  ex- 
changed for  another.  The  old  Metwphysik  der 
Sitten  has  given  place  to  the  new  physique  des 
TThoeurs  ;  but,  though  only  an  occasional  champion 
— a  Martineau  or  a  Green — comes  forward  to 
defend  the  former,  it  would  take  a  microscopic 
intelligence  to  discern  wherein  it  is  more  specu- 
lative than  the  latter,  to  which  the  scientific 
world  seems  to  be  giving  in  its  adherence.  The 
masters  of  the  positive  sciences  have,  however, 
become  the  spiritual  leaders  of  our  generation  ; 
and  coming  to  their  own,  their  own  receive  them ; 
80  that  in  morals  their  un verifiable  guesses  are  apt 
to  pass  for  scientific  hypotheses,  or  even  facts,  and 
their  refutation  of  opposing  systems,  easier  than 
to  damn  with  faint  praise,  needs  only  consist  in 
characterizing  them  as  "  metaphysical." 

Such  seems  to  me  the  present  deplorable  con- 
dition of  ethics.  Speculation,  or  the  one  hand, 
waning  but  conscious  of  itself,  on  the  other, 
waxing  but  unconsciously  taking  itself  for  science. 
From  neither  movement  can  fruitful  results  be 
expected.  The  great  desideratum,  the  sole  con- 
dition of  ethical  progress,  is  the  suspension  of  all 


Methods  of  Ethics. 


n 


philosophizing  until  an  ethical  science  has  been 
constructed  through  a  comprehensive  study  of  the 
phenomena  of  universal  morality. 

But  has  not  the  scientific  coryphseus  of  the 
century,  it  will  be  asked,  undertaken  these  his- 
torical investigations  and  evolved  from  them  a 
final  philosophy  of  morals  ?  Darwin  certainly  is 
the  father  of  evolutionary  ethics ;  and  the  first 
five  chapters  of  his  "  Descent  of  Man  "  are  turning 
out,  as  the  late  Professor  Clifford  was  keen  enough 
to  anticipate,  more  pregnantly  suggestive  and  more 
revolutionary  than  any  other  modern  contribution 
to  the  subject  of  morals.  Two  considerations, 
however,  suggest  the  incompleteness  of  Darwin's 
ethicai  work.  In  the  first  place,  the  historical 
method  v\  in  his  hands  less  an  independent  in- 
strument of  investigation  in  morals  than  an  apt 
means  of  confirming  a  biological  hypothesis. 
And  in  the  second  place,  it  never  escaped  the 
embrace  of  the  spirit  of  speculative  utilitarian- 
ism. "With  Darwin,  in  fact,  historical  ethics  was 
forced  into  tlie  service  of  a  foregone  conclusion 
upon  the  origin  of  species,  and  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion upon  the  derivation  of  morality.  The  time  has 
now  arrived  when  the  history  of  morals  should  be 
followed  out  for  its  own  sake  and  allowed  to  tell 
its  own  story.     But  such  an  investigation  will  not 


38     Importance  of  Darwinian  Ethics, 

be  attempted  so  long  as  scientists  remain  convinced 
of  the  finality  of  the  ethical  science  and  philos- 
ophy associated  with  the  name  of  Darwin. 

It  is,  of  course,  no  unusual  thing  to  find  the 
plastic,  world-moving  thought  of  a  genius  crys- 
tallizing into  the  barren  dogma  of  a  school 
wherein  the  master's  name  is  invoked  to  stem 
the  very  march  of  knowledge  which  he  himself 
set  in  motion.  But  doubt,  as  the  case  of  Dar- 
win happily  illustrates,  is  the  condition  of  all  in- 
tellectual progress.  And  the  true  heirs  of  Dar- 
win are  not  the  dogmatists  of  the  schools,  but  the 
open-minded,  candid,  fact-revering  inquirers  who 
walk  in  the  spirit  of  the  master.  Socrates  does 
not  lay  violent  hands  upon  his  father  Farmenides, 
because  he  points  out  the  difficulties  in  the  Ele- 
atic  doctrine  of  being  and  non-being.  Nor  does 
an  investigator  who  ardent ly  admires  Darwin's 
scientific  achievements,  and  sees  iu  the  man  a 
veiy  embodiment  of  the  true  scientific  spirit,  re- 
nounce his  allegiance  in  criticising  Darwin's 
treatment  of  the  questions  of  morals.  And  noth- 
ing, I  imagine,  is  to-day  such  a  hinderance  to  a 
true  science  of  ethics  as  the  lack  of  a  right  un- 
derstanding with  Darwinism.  To  supply  this 
want  is  the  primary  aim  of  the  following  pages, 
though  incidentally,  it  is  hoped,  a  beginning  may 


Methods  of  Ethics,  39 

be  made  with  historical  ethics,  aud  an  example 
furnished  of  its  value  for  moral  philosophy.  The 
main  object,  however,  is,  assuming  the  truth  of 
Darwinian  science,  to  make  a  dispassionate  exam- 
ination of  its  bearing  upon  morals,  as  well  as  to 
distinguish  in  Darwin's  own  moral  theory  what 
is  fact  or  science  from  what  is  fancy  or  specula- 
tion. But  this  presupposes  a  preliminary  survey 
of  Darwinian  ethics,  and  that  of  Darwinism,  to 
the  exposition  of  which  we  must  now  proceed. 


i 


s 


i 


1 


CHAPTEK  n. 

EVOLUTIONISM   AND    DARWINISM. 

A  generation  has  passed  away  since  1859,  when 
Charles  Darwin,  then  a  man  of  fifty,  published  his 
epoch-making  work  on  the  "  Origin  of  Species." 
The  reception  of  the  book  by  the  public  was  an 
augury  of  the  influence  it  was  destined  to  exert. 
The  first  edition  was  exhausted  almost  immedi- 
ately, and  a  second  edition  was  out  six  weeks 
after  the  first.  This  was  followed  by  others ;  and 
as  the  wave  thus  set  a-going  reached  the  Conti- 
nent, translations  of  the  volume  soon  appeared 
in  most  of  the  languages  of  Europe.  The  book 
has  had  a  wider  influence,  has  stirred  men's 
thoughts  and  feelings  more  profoundly,  and  ex- 
ercised their  attention  more  arduously,  and  even 
painfully,  than  any  other  scientific  work  since 
1543,  when  Copernicus  demonstrated,  to  the  con- 
sternation of  mankind,  the  revolution  of  the  earth 
and  laid  the  foundation  of  modem  astronomy. 
Darwin's  treatise  lias  not  only  become  the  classic 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism.      4 1 

of  contemporary  science,  but,  touching  the  popular 
imagination,  it  has  added  a  new  word  to  our 
language ;  and  we  all  speak  of  Darwinism  much 
as  we  speak  of  evolution.  It  is  true  the  scientist 
reminds  us  the  words  are  not  synonymous,  that 
ev(^lution  is  much  broader  than  Darwinism,  that 
Darwinism  is  only  a  fragment  of  the  total  evolu- 
tionary doctrine.  Still  there  is  no  regulating  the 
use  of  new  words,  and  for  the  mass  of  mankind 
the  system  of  Darwin  is  identified  with  the  the- 
ory of  evolution.  Jtsor  is  this  astonishing.  For, 
though  evolution  was  taught  long  before  the  time 
of  Darwin,  and  had  even  been  conjectured  of  hu- 
man life,  it  did  not  come  home  to  the  hearts  and 
bosoms  of  men  till  Darwin  produced  his  massive 
and  overwhelming  argument  to  demonstrate  Kom 
the  development  of  all  living  beings  from  simpler 
forms  had  been  brought  about  by  means  of  the 
"  survival  of  the  fittest "  in  the  "  struggle  for  exist- 
ence." This  made  it  believable  that  man  was  de- 
scended from  the  same  ancestors  as  the  apes.  And 
people  who  had  remained  stolidly  incurious  re- 
garding the  evolution  of  sun,  and  planets,  and  the 
milky  way,  and  the  rings  of  Saturn,  and  all  the 
choir  and  furniture  cf  heaven,  were  startled  into 
wondering  and  inquisitive  interest  by  Darwin's 
demonstration   of  our  kinship   with    the    apes. 


\a. 


\  't 


42        Darwin  s  Peculiar  Doctrine. 

"  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man ; "  and  Dar- 
win for  tlie  first  time  compelled  general  attention 
to  the  doctrine  of  evolution  by  the  bearing  of  nat- 
ural selection  on  man's  origin,  kinship,  and  his- 
tory. He  first  made  the  public  acquainted  with 
the  idea  of  development ;  and  the  public  has  done 
him  the  honor  of  christening  it  Darwinism. 

Ask,  now,  a  representative  of  the  great  public 
what  he  means  by  Darwinism  or  evolution,  and 
you  will  probably  be  told  it  is  the  doctrine  which 
teaches  that  man  and  the  monkeys  have  the  same 
forefathers ;  or,  should  you  succeed  in  finding  a 
better-informed  spokesman,  you  will  be  informed 
that  Darwinism  is  the  theory  which  supposes  all 
the  species  of  plants  and  animals  to  be  the  re- 
sult, not  of  special  creation,  but  of  gradual  changes 
in  pre-existing  and  simpler  forms.  Now,  it  is 
important  to  observe  at  the  outset  that  while  both 
these  answers  contain  cardinal  ideas  of  the  theory 
of  evolution,  neither  touches  Darwin's  great  orig- 
inal contribution  to  that  theory.  Darwin  was 
not  the  author  or  first  propounder  of  the  doctrine 
that  man  and  the  monkeys  have  the  same  ances- 
tors, nor  yet  of  the  doctrine  that  all  the  varieties 
of  animal  and  vegetable  life  have  been  produced 
by  the  slowly  accumulated  modifications  of  one 
or  more  earlier  types.    It  is  true  that  Darwin  ac- 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      43 

cepted  these  traditional  tenets  as  a  part  of  his 
system,  and  in  that  way  procured  for  them  a 
wider  circulation  and  a  more  general  assent  than 
they  had  ever  before  obtained ;  but  Darwin  never 
claimed,  nor  could  he  have  claimed,  a  patent  for 
the  discovery  of  these  ideas,  nor  did  he  assert 
any  right  of  exchisive  proprietorship  to  them. 
Darwin  was  not  the  author  of  the  theon'y  of  de- 
velopment in  any  of  its  forms.  It  is  his  peculiar 
and  indisputable  merit  to  have  discovered  the 
'mechanism  by  which  (as  is  generally  believed) 
development  is  actually  brought  about  in  our 
species  of  plants  and  animals.  Kot  that  there  is 
evolution  in  the  world,  but  how  evolution  is  ef- 
fected within  the  sphere  of  life,  is  the  central 
point  of  all  Darwin's  demonstrations. 

What,  then,  we  must  first  of  all  ask,  is  the  his- 
tory of  that  theory  of  evolution,  the  mechanism 
of  whose  processes  it  was  reserved  for  Darwin  to 
discover?  Like  most  of  the  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  our  knowledge  and  our  science,  the 
essential  elements  of  the  theory  are  as  old  as 
huma.^  reflection.  It  did  not  spring  suddenly 
from  the  brain  of  Darwin.  As  evolution  itself 
teaches  that  nothing  in  the  world  is  brand-new — 
nothing  exists  which  did  not  pre-exist  in  another 
form — so  must  this  be  true  of  the  theory  of  evo- 


•H 


44        Conception  of  Evolution  Old, 

lution.  It,  too,  like  the  hand  that  wrote  it  out, 
like  the  brain  that  gave  it  form,  has  had  a  his- 
tory reaching  far  back  into  the  dim  recesses  of 
vanished  and  nnremembered  ages.  Such  meagre 
records  as  are  preserved  to  us  of  historic  times 
warrant  our  inclusion  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
within  the  old  declaration  that  "  there  is  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun.  Is  there  anything  whereof 
it  may  be  said,  See,  this  is  new  ?  It  hath  been 
already  of  old  time  which  was  before  us."  As 
names  and  dates  are  often  very  deceptive  we 
must  here  be  on  our  guard.  For  the  evolutionary 
hypothesis  was  not  begotten  of  any  single  brain  ; 
it  is  the  offspring  of  that  ever-growing,  ever- 
ripening  human  culture,  at  whose  breasts  succes- 
sive generations  of  thinkers  are  nourished  with 
the  same  vital  substance.  Foretold  in  the  specula- 
tions of  the  ancient  world,  it  was  announced  in  the 
philosophy,  poetry,  and  science  of  modern  Europe, 
some  decades  before  Darwin,  by  his  spiritual 
foster-brothers  of  an  earlier  generation  ;  though 
to  Darwin  undoubtedly  belongs  the  honor  of 
lifting  it  up  to  the  full  gaze  of  an  astonished 
world  and  fixing  it  there  as  a  landmark  and  a 
monument  in  the  intellectual  development  of 
mankind. 

It  requires  but  little  attention  to  see  that  the 


■\v. 


Evolutionism  and  Darzvinism.      45 

problems  underlying  evolution  are  as  old  as 
human  reflection.  From  the  dawn  of  specula- 
tion the  world  and  all  that  therein  is  has  been  to 
man  an  object  of  wonder  and  mystery,  suggest- 
ing to  him  those  undying  questions  on  the  origin 
of  the  cosmos,  the  source  of  life  and  conscious- 
ness, the  course  ai  lu  tendency  of  the  universe,  the 
origin,  nature,  and  destiny  of  man.  But  these 
are  the  problems  with  which  our  current  theory 
of  evolution  has  to  wrestle.  And  though  the 
modern  evolutionist  is  able,  owing  to  the  enor- 
mous growth  of  physical  science,  to  supply  a 
fuller  and  more  detailed  treatment  of  the  subject, 
the  fundamental  conceptions  of  his  theory  meet  us 
in  the  most  ancient  cosmogonies.  Thus  the  cardi- 
nal point  of  modern  evolutionism — that  nothing 
is,  but  everything  is  in  a  state  of  hecommg,  that 
notning  is  fixed  and  immutable,  but  everything 
may  be  transformed  into  something  else — you 
may  read  alike  in  the  early  speculations  of  a  philo- 
sophical people,  like  the  Greeks  or  Hindoos,  and 
in  those  weird  legends  of  our  Algonquin  Indians, 
which  have  been  preserved  from  oblivion  by  the 
piety  and  devotion  of  Rand  and  Leland.  This 
idea  of  metamorphosis,  of  change  of  one  being 
into  another,  is  not  the  only  element  of  antique 
origin  to  be  found  in  the  modern  theory  of  evo- 


Il 


46         Early  Greek  Anticipations, 

Intion.  Equally  old  is  the  notion  of  the  essential 
unity  of  existence,  which  is  so  important  a  constit- 
uent of  our  current  hypothesis.  When  an  evo- 
lutionary philosopher  tells  us  one  thing  can  be 
evolved  from  another  only  because  all  things 
are  at  bottom  the  same,  he  cannot  be  accused  of 
speculative  innovation,  seeing  that  his  dogma  was 
a  musty  commonplace  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred years  ago  I  Greek  philosophy  asserted,  e.g.^ 
that  atoms  were  the  essence  of  all  things,  that 
atoms  were  the  one  underlying  reality  whence 
all  things  had  issued  and  whither  all  things  tended 
to  return.  But  besides  these  two  notions — that 
one  thing  may  become  another,  and  that  all  things 
are  at  bottom  the  same — Greek  speculation  also 
furnishes  us  with  a  crude  anticipation  of  the  bio- 
logical doctrine  of  the  descent  of  man  from  some 
simpler  organism.  In  the  sixth  century  b.c.  An- 
aximander  struck  out  the  idea  that  men  were 
developed — not  apes — but  developed  fishes,  vrhich 
had  come  on  shore  and  thrown  off  their  scales. 
And  in  the  following  century  Empedocles  traced 
the  origin  of  man  through  a  process  much  akin 
to  Darwin's  struggle  for  life  and  survival  of  the 
fittest.  This  vigorous  thinker  held  that,  through 
the  action  of  subterranean  fire,  there  were  thrown 
up  shapeless  lumps,  formed  of  earth  and  water, 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism.      47 

which  afterwards  shaped  themselves  into  the  parts 
and  organs  of  animals  and  of  men.  Here  was 
an  infinite  chaos  of  heads,  liands,  legs,  arms, 
eyes,  and  other  bodily  members.  Under  the  rule 
of  chance  they  formed  at  first  all  kinds  of  strange 
and  monstrous  combinations,  which  of  course 
proved  unstable;  until,  after  a  long  series  of 
unions  and  dissolutions,  they  at  last,  as  if  from 
exhaustion  of  all  other  modes,  accidentally  hit 
upon  a  happy  marriage  of  suitable  organs  and 
members,  and  set  up  the  surprise  of  animal  or- 
ganisms and  self-conscious  men.  This  is  surely 
a  Darwin -out- Dar  wining  theory  of  natural  se- 
lection. But  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  last 
element  of  our  evolutionary  hypothesis  which 
was  anticipated  by  the  Greeks.  For,  in  the 
fourth  place,  the  general  conception  of  system- 
atic growth,  advance,  or  orderly  progression, 
from  matter  to  life,  from  the  polyp  to  man,  from 
the  atom  to  the  cosmos,  was  as  familiar  to  Greek 
thought  as  to  modern  evolutionary  science.  The 
Greek  natural  philosophers  held  that  the  course 
of  the  world  consisted  in  a  gradual  transition 
from  the  indeterminate  to  the  determinate,  so 
that  higher  and  more  complex  forms  of  existence 
follow  and  depend  on  the  lower  and  simpler 
forms.     Thus  the  catholic  genius  of   Aristotle 


I!  i\ 


ih 


48        Views  of  Plato  and  Aristotle* 

was  unablo  to  conceive  tlio  universe  as  other  tlian 
a  progression  of  graduated  exiGtenco  from  inert 
matter  at  the  base  up  through  ascending  forms 
of  life  till  it  culminated  in  the  rational  activity 
of  man.  If  our  agnostic  scientists  reject  the 
theology  of  Aristotle,  they  will  give  liim  credit 
at  least  for  his  idea  of  cosmic  development,  of  a 
world  subject  to  evolution.  And,  fifthly,  they 
will  have  to  confess  that  we  find  in  Plato  an  ex- 
plicit profession  of  the  evolutionary  faith  in  the 
antiquity  of  man.  Either,  says  Plato,  the  human 
race  had  no  beginning  at  all,  or  had  a  beginning 
in  infinitely  remote  ages — at  a  time  so  far  back 
that  in  the  interval  seasons  have  changed,  ani- 
mals have  been  transformed,  and  human  civiliza- 
tion has  been  many  times  acquired,  lost,  and  re- 
acquired. 

Among  the  Greeks,  then,  we  find  these  five 
constituent  elements  of  the  modern  evolution- 
hypothesis  :  the  belief  in  the  immeasurable  an- 
tiquity of  man,  the  conception  of  a  progressive 
movement  in  the  life  of  nature,  tiie  notion  of  a 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  the  twofold  assump- 
tion that  any  thing  or  any  animal  may  become 
another  since  all  things  are  at  bottom  the  same. 
Perhaps  if  we  knew  as  much  of  the  speculations 
of  other  ancient  peoples  as  we  know  of  the  Greeks, 


i 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      49 


H 


we  should  find  similar  thoughts  elsewhere.  Wo 
need  not,  however,  stop  to  conjecture  what  the 
ancient  world  believed ;  for  its  civilization  was 
submerged,  in  the  early  Christian  centuries,  by 
inundations  of  Goths,  Vandals,  Huns,  and  simi- 
lar masses  of  barbarism.  This  social  cataclysm 
was  stemmed  by  the  young  Christian  Church, 
which,  for  a  millennium  after,  remained  the  one 
beneficent  and  potent  agency  in  European  civili- 
zation. Consequently,  as  the  best  intellects  were 
everywhere  in  the  Church,  theology  flourished 
and  science  was  neglected.  The  meagre  biblical 
account  of  creation  was  interpreted  in  the  light — 
or,  rather,  darkness— of  those  first  crude  impres- 
sions which  our  senses  give  us  of  things ;  and 
it  was  believed  that  the  world  had  not  been  in 
existence  more  than  five  or  six  thousand  years, 
that  the  earth  was  the  middle  point  of  the  world, 
and  man  the  central  object  of  creation,  with  the 
Church  about  him,  hell  beneath  the  earth,  and 
heaven  stretching  beyond  the  utmost  rim  of  the 
celestial  universe,  through  orders  of  angelic  hie- 
rarchies, up  to  the  throne  of  God  himself  I  At 
the  touch  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo,  however,  this 
whole  fabric  collapsed.  And  modern  science, 
with  which  the  age  had  long  been  in  travail,  was 
born. 


{I 


ii 


If  ■!■; 


itri 


50 


Kant's  Cosmic  Evolution. 


It  was  not,  however,  tilJ  anoflier  century  had 
passed  that  the  notion  of  development  fonnd  a 
place  in  modern  science.  In  1756,  Imnianuel 
Kant,  the  greatest  of  tlie  German  philosopliers, 
attempted  to  trace  the  evohition  of  the  universe 
from  a  primitive  chaos  to  its  present  orderly  array 
of  snns  and  stars,  planets  and  satellites.  The  world 
as  it  is,  he  said,  is  not  the  immediate  product  of 
the  divine  creation.  God  has  created  matter,  and 
endowed  it  with  forces ;  and  through  the  blind 
play  of  these  forces  the  primitive  chaos  has  been 
shaped,  by  a  purely  mechanical  process,  into  cen- 
tral bodies  with  their  planets,  planets  with  their 
moons,  and  so  on  in  ever-M'idening  circles  till 
the  completed  universe  at  last  emerj^ed,  full  of 
order,  harmony,  and  beauty.  Half  a  century 
later  this  theory  of  Kant's  was  independently 
established  by  Laplace,  the  greatest  of  French 
mathematicians. 

The  conception  of  evolution  thus  introduced  by 
Kant  was  not  new  to  the  countrymen  of  Leib- 
nitz. Like  Kant's  metaphysics  and  ethics,  it  was 
appropriated,  developed,  and  extended  from  nat- 
ure to  spirit  by  Schelling  and  Hegel,  through 
whose  influence  it  became  a  constituent  element 
in  German  habits  of  thought.  Meantime,  in  Eng- 
land, it  was  seized  upon  by  geologists  to  account 


\\ 


■   r 


I 


' 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      51 

for  the  features  and  appearance  of  the  earth's 
crnst.  The  astronomers  asserted  the  earth  was 
originally  a  cooling  sphere  of  incandescent  mat- 
ter. And  we  know  it  to-day  as  a  solid  core, 
enveloped  with  air  and  water,  here  tossed  into 
corrugated  mountains,  and  there  hollowed  into 
scarped  ravines  or  ppread  out  in  fruitful  plains 
and  valleys.  Between  its  primitive  and  its  pres- 
ent condition  there  is  an  enormous  interval,  and 
the  earlier  geologists  had  filled  it  up  with  mirac- 
ulous cataclysms  and  volcanic  eruptions.  But 
Lyell  now  came  forward  with  his  proof  that  the 
history  of  the  earth  was  a  process  of  slow  devel- 
opment, solely  through  the  agency  of  causes  still 
in  operation.  The  colossal  results  were  due,  not 
to  the  magnitude  of  tho  causes,  but  to  their  cu- 
mulative effects  in  the  course  of  vast  geological 
ages,  which  we  inadequately  attempt  to  define  by 
millions  of  years.  Hold  to  this  notion  of  an  in- 
finite past,  and  the  phenomena  of  the  earth,  like 
the  phenomena  of  tht  universe,  all  find  their 
place  in  the  process  of  evolution. 

Evolution  in  the  universe,  evolution  in  the 
earth  ;  it  now  remained  to  discover  evolution  in  the 
life  of  the  plants  and  animals  on  the  earth.  And 
it  was  in  this  biological  department  that  Darwin 
made  his  original  contribution  to  the  evolution- 


wm. 


Is:;'' 


:  i] 


j-hf 


ill  I 


ri 


f 

"-■i; 

u 

f         ■; 

If  ■ 

I 

52         Later  Evolutionary  Science, 

ary  movement,  at  the  same  time  that  his  friend 
Lyell  was  carrying  it  into  geology.  We  have 
abundantly  found  that  Darwin  did  not  originate 
the  general  theory  of  evolution.  We  are  now  to 
see  he  was  not  the  first  to  propound  even  the 
more  limited  doctrine  of  the  evolution  of  plants 
and  animals.  Fifteen  years  before  he  was  born, 
his  own  grandfather,  Erasmus  Darwin,  in  Eng- 
land, the  poet  Goethe,  in  Germany,  and  Geoffrey 
Saint  Ililaire,  the  French  naturalist,  came  almost 
simultaneously  to  the  conclusion  that  species  were 
not  separate  creations  and  immutable,  but  de- 
scendants of  pre-existing  simpler  forms  and  ca- 
pable of  undergoing  modifications.  From  that 
day  to  this  there  has  been  a  ferment  of  specula- 
tion on  the  origin  of  species.  Early  in  the  cen- 
tury it  took  the  form  of  an  antagonism  between 
creation  and  evolution.  Are  our  species  of  plants 
and  animals  primeval  creations,  or  modified  de- 
scendants of  simpler  species  ?  A  horse  is  different 
from  a  zebra  ;  a  man  is  different fiom  a  monkey 
— were  they  created  different,  or  is  each  pair  de- 
scended from  a  common  ancestor?  The  evolu- 
tionary view  of  the  question  was  maintained 
throughout  the  first  third  of  our  century  by  the 
eminent  French  naturalist,  Lamarck,  "whose 
conclusions  on  the  subject  excited  much  attention." 


\ 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      53 

"  Ho  first  did  the  eminent  service,"  says  Darwin, 
*^  of  arousing  attention  to  the  probability  of  all 
change  in  the  organic,  as  well  as  in  the  inorganic, 
world  being  the  result  of  law,  and  not  of  mirac- 
ulous interposition."  He  held  that  organic  beings 
were  modified  by  the  action  of  the  physical  con- 
ditions of  life,  by  the  crossing  of  already  existing 
forms,  and  by  the  effects  of  habit — of  use  or  of 
disuse.  It  is  due  to  constant  use,  e.g.,  in  brows- 
ing on  the  branches  of  trees  that  the  neck  of  the 
giraffe  has  grown  to  such  an  abnormal  length. 

Lamarck  was  the  true  precursor  of  Darwin. 
And  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species  "  was  the  cul- 
minating point  of  evolutionary  biology.  That 
work  may  be  called  the  embodiment  of  its  au- 
thor's intellectual  life  from  his  twenty-second  to 
his  fiftieth  year.  What,  now,  was  the  theory 
which  Darwin  struck  out  and  elaborated  in  these 
twenty-eight  years  ?  What  was  Darwin's  original 
contribution  to  that  hypothesis  of  evolution  with 
which  his  name  is  now  so  generally  associated  ? 
Well,  in  the  first  place,  it  was  not  the  general 
theory  of  development — the  theory  which  sup- 
poses that  everything,  instead  of  being  created  as 
it  is,  has  reached  its  present  precise  and  deter- 
minate form  only  after  passing  through  an  infin- 
itude of  lower  stages.     And,  secondly,  it  was  iwt 


1 

i 


i 

t 


54 


Darwin  s  Contribution, 


the  particular  biological  application  of  this  gen- 
eral doctrine,  seeing  that  Lamarck  and  other 
naturalists  had  maintained  before  Darwir  that 
our  species  of  plants  and  animals  were  growths, 
and  not  independent  and  immutable  creations. 
But  Darwin's  onginal  contribution  to  the  evolu- 
tionary theory  w<i8  a  demonstration  of  the  mech- 
anism by  which  the  development  of  species  had 
been  effected.  To  take  a  specific  example,  he 
undertook  to  show  how  it  happened,  by  what 
means  it  was  brought  about,  that  from  <me  an- 
cestral species  there  could  have  descended,  in  the 
course  of  thousands  on  thousands  of  generations, 
four  species  so  distinct  as  the  horse,  the  ass,  the 
qnagga,  and  the  zebra. 

In  explaining  how  species  originated,  Darwin 
got  most  help  from  the  study  of  domesticated 
animals  and  cultivated  plants.  The  initial  and 
even  fundamental  fact  of  his  whole  theory  is  the 
tendency  of  all  living  beings  to  vary ;  and  the 
variations,  which  are  generally  minute  and  in- 
definite, are  especially  noticeable  in  our  cultivated 
plants  and  domesticated  animals.  Thus  every 
boy  knows  how  much  rabbits  in  a  hutch  differ 
from  one  another  in  the  hue  of  their  fur,  the 
length  of  their  ears,  etc.;  and  anybody  who  has 
paid  the  least  attention  to  dogs,  horses,  cows,  or 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      55 


other  animals,  or  even  to  plants,  will  readily  ad- 
mit that  each  individual  has  pecnliarities  which 
mark  it  off  from  its  fellows.  This,  then,  is  the 
first  fact  to  which  Darwin  calls  attention — indi- 
viduals of  the  same  species,  descendants  of  the 
same  parents,  differ  from  one  another  by  small, 
insignificant,  and  indefinite  variations.  The  sec- 
ond fact  is  that  these  differences  may  be  trans- 
mitted to  offspring ;  they  may  be  inherited.  And 
the  third  fact  is  that  man,  by  attending  to  those 
variations  which  are  useful  or  pleasing  to  him, 
may  originate  breeds  so  diverse  as  the  dray-  and 
the  race-horse,  or  the  greyhound  and  the  race- 
hound,  or  the  carrier-  and  the  tumbler-pigeon. 
Man  creates  nothing ;  he  waits  for  the  variations 
which  nature  gives;  and  then  selecting  those 
whicti  are  useful  or  pleasing  to  him,  he  preserves 
them,  and  in  preserving  accumulates  them, 
throughout  successive  generations.  Man's  power 
of  accumulative  selection  is,  therefore,  the  key 
to  the  origin  of  our  diverse  breeds  of  domesti- 
cated animals  and  cultivated  plants.  And  the 
influence  of  this  power  cannot  well  be  overesti- 
mated. Speaking  of  what  breeders  had  done  for 
sheep.  Lord  Somerville  observed,  "  It  would  seem 
as  if  they  had  chalked  out  upon  a  wall  a  form 
perfect  in  itself,  and  then  had  given  it  existence." 


ii  ii 


hi. 


56      Domestic  Breeds  Formed  by  Man. 

Take  .inother  species,  and  consider  the  nnmerons 
breeds  of  pigeons — the  carrier,  the  tnnibler,  the 
rnnt  with  its  long  beak,  the  barb  with  its  short 
one,  tlie  ponter  with  its  enormous  crop  which  it 
glories  in  inflating,  the  turbit  w^ith  its  reversed 
breast-feathers,  the  trnmpeter  and  langher  with 
tlieir  peculiar  coo,  the  fantail  with  its  forty  tail- 
feathers  instead  of  fourteen.  Yet  these  astonish- 
ingly diverse  breeds  are  all  descended  from  the 
wild  rock -pigeon  of  the  European  coasts ;  and 
Darwin,  who  was  a  great  pigeon-fancier  and 
member  of  two  of  the  London  pigeon-clubs, 
found  no  difficulty  in  explaining  the  origin  of  all 
these  varieties  from  man's  power  of  selecting  and 
accumulating  the  individual  peculiarities  which 
nature  was  always  presenting.  Suppose,  e.g.^  that 
some  tamed  rock-pigeons,  ages  ago,  happened  to 
have  more  than  fourteen  tail-feathers.  A  pigeon- 
fancier  is  struck  with  the  peculiarity,  and  pre- 
serves these  individuals.  Their  descendants  may 
have  sixteen  tail-feathers,  or  perhaps  more.  In 
the  course  of  countless  generations,  pigeons  may, 
as  a  result  of  man's  constant  selection,  be  pro- 
duced with  twenty  or  thirty  tail-feathers,  till  at 
last  the  fantail  appears  with  its  full  quota  of 
forty. 

Have  we  not  here  some  light  on  our  question 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism.       57 

of  the  origin  of  species  ?  We  liave  seen  that  the 
varions  races  of  our  domesticated  animals  and 
cnltivatecl  plant?:,  have  been  formed  by  man. 
Nature  presents  individual  differences  ;  man  pre- 
serves those  beings  whose  peculiar  modifications 
are  useful  or  pleasing  to  him  ;  these  peculiarities 
are  transmitted  to  offspring,  and  in  transmission 
through  successive  generations  are  accumulated, 
till  forms  arise  which  we  call  varieties,  but  which 
in  fact  are  scarcely  distinguisliable  from  genuine 
species.  Domestic  races  are  thus  made  by  man 
through  his  power  of  accumulative  selection.  But 
the  species  of  animals  and  plants  in  a  state  of 
nature  cannot  be  thus  produced  by  man.  How, 
then,  do  they  originate  ?  Is  there  any  agency 
analogous  to  the  selection  practised  by  man? 

Man  forms  domestic  races,  which  are  "  incipi- 
ent species,"  by  selecting  certain  natural  variations 
in  organisms  and  accumulating  them  by  trans- 
mission through  successive  generations.  In  the 
absence  of  man,  could  the  modifications  which 
are  constantly  appearing  in  organic  beings  be 
preserved  and  accumulated  ?  Darwin  affirms 
they  could  on  one  condition — that  they  are  bene- 
ficial or  directly  useful  to  the  creature  modified. 
The  demonstration  of  that  process  constitutes  at 
once  Darwin's  solution  of  the  origin  of  species 


58 


Selection  the  Means, 


IM 


■f  . 


and  his  original  contribution  to  tlie  hypothesis  of 
evolution.  It  was  tl:'^  spark  which  kindled  into 
life  the  long-prepared  materials  for  biological 
science.  The  thought  of  natural  selection,  of  a 
universal  struggle  for  life  and  survival  of  the 
fittest,  was  the  soul  with  which  Darwin  informed 
the  scientific  body  fashioned  by  his  predecessors. 
In  that  thought,  and  that  alone,  consists,  as 
Haeckel  says,  the  essential  service  which  Darwin 
rendered  to  modern  science. 

But  what  in  particular  is  the  nature  of  this  new 
formative  conception  ?  and  how  did  )*"  originate 
in  Darwin's  mind  ?  The  latter  question  Darwin 
himself  enables  us  to  answer.  After  he  had  at- 
tained, through  a  study  of  domestic  productions, 
a  just  conception  of  the  power  of  selection,  it 
dawned  upon  him,  "  on  reading  Malthus  *  On 
Population,'  that  natural  selection  was  the  inevi- 
table result  of  the  rapid  increase  of  all  organic 
beings."  And  he  justly  describes  his  own  cardi- 
nal principle  as  "  the  doctrine  of  Malthus  applied 
with  manifold  force  to  the  whole  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms."  It  was  with  man  that 
Malthus,  an  English  reactionary  against  the  social 
optimism  of  the  school  of  Housseau,  was  primarily, 
if  not  exclusively,  concerned.  He  saw  a  barrier 
set  to  the  realization  of  their  dream  of  the  happi- 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,       59 


ness  of  human  society  in  the  constant  tendency  of 
population  to  multiply  faster  than  the  means  of 
subsistence.  "While  human  beings  tend  to  in- 
crease in  a  geometrical  ratio,  food  can  at  best  be 
increased  only  in  an  arithmetical  ratio.  The  in- 
evitable result  is  starvation.  And  starvation  is 
the  ultimate  check  to  population.  But  although 
the  ultimate,  it  is  not  the  immediate  check  ;  since, 
in  ordinary  circumstances,  the  unrestrained  in- 
crease of  human  beings  is  prevented  by  prnden- 
tial  considerations  with  regard  to  marriage,  by 
brutal  and  revolting  practices,  and  by  such  ruth- 
less destroyers  as  disease,  war,  pestilence,  and  the 
whole  train  of  human  miseries. 

Such  is  the  principle  of  Mai  thus.  It  has  be- 
come a  constituent  part  of  political  economy, 
giving  its  tone,  one  might  almost  say,  to  the  treat- 
ise of  Mill.  And  it  has  become  the  germinant 
idea  of  biology,  accounting,  in  the  hands  of  Darwin, 
for  the  formation  of  varieties  and  the  origin  of 
species  of  plants  and  animals  in  a  state  of  nature. 

Let  us  now  endeavor  to  follow  Darwin's  account 
of  the  process. 

The  first  moment  is  the  excessive  fecundity  of 
nature,  which  Darwin  was  enabled  to  realize  from 
his  observation  of  the  teeming,  self-strangling  life 
of  the  forests  of  Brazil.    But  to  take  a  less  favor- 


6o 


Fecundity  of  Organisms. 


able  case,  consider  the  elephant,  which  is  the  slow- 
est breeder  of  all  known  animals.  Yet,  at  the 
minimum  rate  of  increase,  a  single  pair  would 
"after  a  period  of  from  seven  hundred  and  forty 
to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  years  "  have  "  nearly 
nineteen  million"  living  descendants.  **Even 
slow-breeding  man  has  doubled  in  twenty-five 
years,  and,  at  this  rate,  in  less  than  a  thousand 
years  there  would  literally  not  be  standing- 
room  for  his  progeny."  Or,  consider  the  case  of 
plants.  There  is  no  plant  which  does  not  produce 
more  than  two  seeds ;  yet,  merely  at  that  rate  of 
increase,  an  annual  plant  would,  in  the  course  of 
twenty  years,  produce  a  million  plants.  Without 
adding  examples,  we  may  now  realize  Darwin's 
general  statement  "that  eoery  organic  heing  natu- 
rally increases  at  so  high  a  rate  that,  if  not  de- 
stroyed, the  earth  would  soon  be  covered  by  the 
progeny  of  a  single  pair."  Hence,  as  infinitely 
more  individual  animals  and  plants  are  produced 
than  can  possibly  survive,  nature  must  be  the 
scene  of  universal  competition.  "  There  must  in 
every  case  be  a  struggle  for  existence,  either  one 
individual  with  another  of  the  same  species,  or 
with  the  individuals  of  distinct  species,  or  with 
the  physical  conditions  of  life."  Existence  is  an 
appalling  tragedy,  with  the  universe  for  its  scene, 


Evolution  ism  and  Da  rw  in  ism.      6 1 


and  for  time  the  duration  of  geological  ages ;  its 
characters  are  made  up  of  that  infinitude  of  indi- 
viduals which  constitute  the  organic  world ;  but 
so  full  of  horrors  is  the  drama  that  most  of  the  ac- 
tors are  cut  down  at  their  first  entrance  upon  the 
stage,  while  those  who  escape  are  doomed  to  a 
never-ending  struggle  for  life,  in  which  only  the 
strongest  and  the  best  favored  have  any  chance 
of  reaching  the  second  scene,  that  opens,  like 
the  first,  with  mutual  conflict  and  all  but  nni- 
veisal  extermination.  Now,  in  this  struggle  of  all 
against  all,  and  of  each  with  the  conditions  of 
life,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  struggle  will  gen- 
erally be  most  severe  between  closely  related  or- 
ganisms, between  species  of  the  same  genus,  or 
individuals  and  varieties  of  the  same  species,  ow- 
ing, of  course,  to  the  similarity  of  their  structure, 
constitution,  and  habits.  The  fish  does  not  com- 
pete with  the  bird  ;  and  of  birds,  swallow  com- 
petes against  swallow,  and  robin  against  robin. 
So  complex,  however,  is  the  web  of  relations 
by  which  all  organic  beings  of  the  same  country 
are  bound  together  that  helps  or  checks  to  the  in- 
crease of  a  species  frequently  come  from  the  most 
distant  and  unexpected  sources.  Who  would  have 
suspected  that  the  growth  of  red  clover  was  largely 
dependent  on  cats  ?    Yet,  as  this  flower  can  be  fer- 


n 


' 


■:f' 


fl'- 


•V'  1- 


63 


Struggle  f Of  Life, 


tilized  only  by  the  liumble-bee,  and  hninble-bees 
flourisli  only  where  mice  do  not  destroy  their 
combs  and  nests,  and  mice  are  destroyed  by  cats, 
we  can  see  that  without  cats  there  would  be  no 
combs  and  nests,  no  bees,  and  therefore  no  fertili- 
zation of  clover. 

Directly  or  indirectly,  then,  the  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms  are,  owing  to  the  enormous 
rate  at  which  living  boijigs  tend  to  increase,  the 
scene  of  universal  competition  and  struggle  "m* 
existence,  in  which  the  great  majority  must  inev- 
itably perish.  We  have  seen,  however,  that  all 
living  beings  are  subject  to  slight  modifications ; 
and  taking  account  of  the  infinite  complexity  of 
tlie  relations  of  all  organic  beings  to  one  another, 
and  to  their  conditions  of  life,  it  would  be  strange 
if  some  of  these  modifications  were  not  more  ben- 
eficial than  others.  In  that  case  the  individuals 
that  have  happened  to  undergo  this  profitable  va- 
riation would  have  an  advantage  over  their  rivals. 
They  would,  accordingly,  be  victorious  in  the 
struggle  for  life ;  and  transmitting  their  benefi- 
cial peculiarities  to  descendants,  these  would  enjoy 
a  similar  advantage.  Such  favored  forms  would 
spread  and  conquer,  while  their  rivals  would 
first  decline  and  then  become  utterly  extinct. 
This  is  what  Darwin  means  by  natural  selection, 


1; 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,       63 

or  survival  of  tho  fittest,  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence. 

See,  now,  tho  result.  As  man  forms  domestic 
races  by  selecting  and  preserving  through  sncces- 
sive  generations  those  individuals  whose  peculiar 
niodificatioTis  are  useful  or  pleasing  to  him,,  so,  in 
the  struggle  for  life,  individuals  with  modifications 
useful  to  themaelvea  are  preserved,  while  their  less- 
favored  rivals  arc  killed  out;  and  hi  transmitting 
to  their  offspring  the  peculiarities  which  enabled 
them  to  survive,  they  begin  the  formation  of  a 
distinct  variety,  which,  iu  the  lapse  of  geological 
ages,  may  emerge  as  a  new  species.  Man  forms 
species  through  selective  breeding,  the  I'csult  of 
his  own  choice ;  nature  forms  species  from  that 
selective  breeding  which  is  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  tljo  extermination  of  rivals  and  sur- 
vival of  tho  fittest  in  tho  struggle  for  existence. 

This,  then,  is  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  of 
species.  Assuming  that  species  were  not  special 
creations,  fixed  and  immutable,  Darwin  shows 
how  all  the  species  of  any  one  genus  have  been 
developed  from  a  single  stock  by  means  of  natu- 
ral selection,  or  survival  of  the  fittest,  in  the  strug- 
gle for  life.  The  horse,  the  ass,  the  qnagga,  and 
the  zebra  are  not  originally  distinct  species,  but 
descendants    of  a  common    ancestor,    modified 


'S 


n 


i 
S 


I 


m 


m 

M 


tllf 


64 


Formation  of  Species, 


through  natural  selection.  And  as  other  species 
may,  in  the  same  way,  be  reduced  to  a  single 
primitive  form,  it  is  clear  that  the  number  of 
original  species  will  be  exceedingly  limited.  In- 
deed, some  naturalists  hold  that  all  the  organic 
beings  which  have  ever  lived  on  this  earth  may 
be  descended  from  some  one  primordial  form. 
And  even  the  cautious  Darwin  maintains  that  all 
"  animals  are  descended  from  at  most  only  four 
or  five  progenitors,  and  plants  from  an  equal  or 
lesser  number." 

In  this  genealogical  table  of  all  living  beings 
man  cannot  be  separated  from  the  apes.  Both 
are  modified  descendants  of  the  same  progenitors. 
This  deduction  from  Darwin's  theory  of  natural 
selection,  now,  is  confirmed  by  a  comparison  of 
the  two  species.  In  the  first  place,  their  struct- 
ure is  not  only  on  the  same  fundamental  plan, 
but  presents  a  complete  correspondence  of  parts. 
If  you  compare  the  gorilla  with  man,  you  will 
find,  it  is  true,  that  its  brain-case  is  smaller,  its 
trunk  larger,  its  lower  limbs  shorter,  its  upper 
limbs  longer,  in  proportion,  than  those  of  man  ; 
but  in  all  these  respects  the  other  apes  depart 
still  more  widely  from  the  gorilla.  And  what- 
ever organ  or  system  of  organs  be  selected  for 
comparison,  whether  the  vertebral  column,  the 


;i.-A;. 


r: 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      65 

skull,  the  teeth,  the  hand,  the  foot,  or  even  the 
brain,  it  has  been  established  by  Huxley,  after  the 
most  careful  determination  of  form  and  weight 
and  number,  that  in  every  visible  character  "  the 
structural  differences  which  separate  man  from 
the  gorilla  and  chimpanzee  are  not  so  great  as 
those  which  separate  the  gorilla  from  the  lower 
apes."  Secondly^  the  minute  structure  and  com- 
position of  the  tissues  and  blood  of  monkeys  is 
closely  similar  to  our  own.  They  are  liable  to 
our  diseases,  and  have  been  known  to  suffer  from 
catarrh,  cons^itmption,  apoplexy,  fever,  etc.  Their 
nervous  system,  too,  is  similarly  affected.  They 
often  take  to  tea.  coffee,  tobacco,  and  spirituous 
liquors.  They  have  been  known  to  get  drunk ; 
and  on  the  following  morning  they  have  exhib- 
ited the  perfectly  human  phenomenon  of  Katz- 
enjammer^  with  its  complication  of  headache, 
doleful  countenance,  and  disg"-?t  with  beer  or 
wine,  but  relish  for  the  juice  of  lemons.  An 
American  monkey,  we  are  told,  after  once  getting 
drunk  on  brandy,  would  never  taste  it  again. 
Shall  we  call  this  the  simian  stage  of  American 
teetotalism?  Tliirdly^  man  possesses  in  a  rudi- 
mentary condition  organs  or  parts  which  are 
regularly  present  in  some  of  the  lower  animals. 
These  now  useless  parts  and  organs  can  be  ex- 


i 


mi 


i 


%: 


r 


66      Mans  Kinship  with  the  Apes. 

plained  only  on  the  assumption  that  man  is  de- 
scended from  some  lower  animal  in  which  these 
rndiments  were  useful.  But  in  monkeys  many 
of  the  same  parts  are  in  a  rudimentary  condition  ; 
hence,  monkeys  will  have  a  genealogy  similar  to 
man's.  And, /(T^^./'^/iZy,  embryologists  have  shown 
that  in  the  early  stages  of  its  existence  the  young 
liuman  being  goes  through  the  same  development 
as  the  young  ape,  and  in  the  later  stage,  if 
marked  differences  appear,  the  human  being  is 
not  more  unlike  the  dog  than  the  a]3e  is. 

Man,  then,  must  be  ranked  in  the  same  order 
witli  the  apes.  The  whole  simian  stock,  includ- 
ing man,  has  sprung  from  the  same  progenitors. 
And  the  structure  and  condition  of  this  common 
ancestor  may  even  now  be  dimly  discerned  by 
anyone  who  can  interpret  the  human  and  simian 
characteristics  we  have  just  mentioned.  Such  an 
observer  would  discover  that  the  early  progeni- 
tor of  man  was  a  hairy,  tailed  quadruped,  proba- 
ble arboreal  in  his  habits,  and  a  denizen  of 
some  warm,  forest-clad  land  in  the  Old  World. 
But  behind  this  Adam  even  there  is  a  pre- 
Adamite.  If  we  look  still  farther  back  in  the  dim 
recesses  of  time,  we  shall  see  the  genealogical  line 
running  through  a  long  series  of  diversified  forms 
of  marsupial,  of  reptile,  at  fish,  to  an  ultimate 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      6^ 

apcestral  animal — a  fish-like  creature,  which 
uhited  both  sexes  in  itself,  and  in  which  the  lungs 
existed  as  a  float  and  the  heart  as  a  simple  pul- 
sating vessel.  No  paradise  was  the  birthplace  of 
this  first  parent,  but  the  shore  of  a  restless  sea, 
whose  changes  by  day  and  by  month  begot  in 
him  that  periodicity  of  function  which,  like  an 
echo  over  jtei  iiities,  to  this  day  survives  in  his 
latest  human  descendant. 

This,  then,  is  Darwin's  new  hypothesis  in  nat- 
ural history.  I  have  had  to  limit  myself  to  the 
merest  outline.  But  I  must  add,  before  pass- 
ing on,  that  Darwin  develops  his  theory  with  a 
fecundity  of  intellectual  resources,  a  wealth  of 
observations  and  experiments,  a  skill  in  the  group- 
ing of  evidence,  and,  more  than  all,  with  an  ex- 
treme of  caution  in  speculation  and  an  extreme  of 
candor  in  weighing  the  arguments  of  opponents, 
which  no  one  can  fail  to  recognize  as  marvellous 
in  itself  and  even  honorable  to  our  common  hu- 
manity. Hasty,  however,  as  our  sketch  has  been, 
it  will  now,  I  think,  be  clear  what  the  essential 
moment  of  the  Darwinian  theory  really  is.  Were 
we  asked  to  define  it,  we  should  say,  Darwinism  is 
the  application  of  the  law  of  natural  selection — 
i.e.,  struggle  for  life  and  survival  of  the  fittest — 
to  account  for  the  development  of  life  and  the 


68 


Darwin  s  Achievement, 


origin  of  species  throughout  the  whole  organic 
world.  It  is  only  a  part  of  the  general  theory 
of  evolution.  For  evolutionism  is  that  conception 
of  the  universe  which  regards  it  as  the  result, 
not  of  an  act,  but  of  a  process,  which  holds  that 
it  is  not  now  what  it  was  in  the  beginning,  but 
has  become  what  it  is  through  a  series  of  slow  and 
gradual  changes,  whereby  growth,  development, 
or  progress  has  been  effected,  and  all  purely  by 
the  action  of  causes  immanent  in  the  universe. 
This  evolutionism  is  as  old  as  human  thought, 
and  it  had  explained  before  Darwin  the  process 
of  development  in  the  inorganic  world.  Further, 
it  had  asserted  development  as  a  hkW  of  life  and 
originator  of  species;  but  causes  adeqimte  to 
such  a  result  it  had  not  discovered.  It  was  this 
lack  that  Darwinism  supplied  with  natural  selec- 
tion. 

It  is  not  the  province  of  the  present  investiga- 
tion to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  evolutionism  and 
of  Darwinism.  Assuming  them  true,  we  have  to 
ask.  What  follows  ?  But  before  raising  that  ques- 
tion I  may  be  allowed  to  observe,  as  a  simple  his- 
torical fact,  that  no  one  nowadays  seems  to  doubt 
the  validity  of  the  general  theory  of  evolution. 
That  the  genesis  of  the  cosmos  and  of  the  earth 
which  we  inhabit  is  not  explained  by  a  single 


i' 


uu 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism.      69 


\ 


creative  act,  but  implies  a  process  extending 
over  the  immensity  of  geological  ages,  is  ad- 
mitted by  everyone  at  all  conversant  with  the  gen- 
eral results  of  modtrn  astronomy  and  geology. 
And  "  so  far  as  the  animal  world  is  concerned," 
we  have  the  high  authority  of  Professor  Huxley 
for  the  assurance  that  "  evolution  is  no  longer  a 
speculation,  but  a  statement  of  historical  fact." 
Observation  has  done  for  the  natural  sciences  pre- 
cisely the  reverse  of  what  criticism  has  done  for 
the  Homeric  poems — it  has  turned  a  number  of 
separate  stories  into  a  continuous  epic,  an  epic 
which  traces  the  world-events  from  that  liomo- 
geneous  chaos  '*in  the  beginning"  to  the  defi- 
nite, coherent,  heterogeneous  cosmos  of  to-day. 
While,  however,  evolutionism  is  generally  accept- 
ed in  some  form  or  other,  theistic  or  naturalistic, 
rationalistic  or  agnostic  (in  itself  it  is  absolutely 
neutral  between  these  metaphysical  theories),  there 
is  not  the  same  imanimity  of  verdict,  even  in  the 
scientific  world,  about  Darwinism.  There  is  no 
doubt,  I  think,  that  the  vast  majority  of  what  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  calls  the  "  hodmen  of  science  "  ac- 
cept Darwin's  theory  of  natural  selection,  both  in 
itself  and  in  Darwin's  extensive  application  of  it. 
But  it  is  yet  a  significant  fact  that  leaders,  perhaps 
tlie  leaders,  of  the  scientific  world  give  only  a  very 


yo        How  Regarded  by  Scientists, 


\. 


il\^- 


qnaliiied  adherence  to  Darwin's  essential  doctrine. 
Ilelmholtz  asserts  that,  while  natra-al  selection  may 
have  been  competent  to  produce  varieties  within 
the  same  species,  and  even  ma,ny  so-called  species, 
the  question  of  the  descent  of  species  in  general, 
and  man  in  particular,  is  at  present  determined 
rather  by  the  preconceptions  of  individual  in- 
vestigators than  by  the  facts  themselves.  And 
Yirchow,  after  claiming  for  experts  ale  le  the 
final  adjudication  of  the  question  (and  this  claim 
every  dispassionate  thinker  will  concede),  goes  on 
to  observe  that  at  the  present  time  there  is  no 
actual  warrant  for  taking  the  step  from  the  theory 
of  descent  (which,  let  me  say,  was  as  fascinating 
for  Kant  as  for  Darwin)  to  ihd  fact  of  descent, 
though,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  ground  for 
maintaining  that  it  is  either  impossible  or  irra- 
tional. More  important  still  is  the  testimony  of 
Alfred  Kussell  Wallace,  the  joint  discoverer  with 
Darwin  of  the  theory  of  natural  selection.  And 
yet  it  is  Wallace  who  tells  us  that  '^  natural  selec- 
tion could  only  have  endowed  the  savage  with  a 
brain  a  little  superior  to  that  of  an  ape."  Lastly, 
Darwin's  friend  and  defender.  Professor  Huxley, 
tempering  his  well-founded  admiration  with 
equally  well-founded  scepticism,  reminds  us  in 
no  uncertain  tones  that  our  "  acceptance  of  the 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,       71 

Darwinian  hypothesis  must  be  provisional  so  long 
as  one  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence  is  wanting ; 
and  so  long  as  all  the  animals  and  plants  certainly 
produced  by  selective  breeding  from  a  common 
stock  are  fertile,  and  their  progeny  are  fertile  with 
one  another,  that  link  will  be  wanting.  For  so 
long  selective  breeding  will  not  be  proved  to  be 
competent  to  do  all  that  is  required  of  it  to  pro- 
duce natural  species."  So  that  "  it  yet  remains 
to  be  seen,"  as  he  tersely  puts  it,  in  a  later  work, 
"  how  far  natural  selection  suffices  for  the  produc- 
tion of  species." 

According  to  most  eminent  authorities,  then, 
the  case  stands  tiius  :  Biology  has  demonstrated, 
as  matter  of  historic  fact,  that  life  first  appeared 
on  our  globe  in  plant-form,  that  it  next  emerged 
in  the  lower  animals,  and  thence  passing  by  in- 
numerable gradations  through  beings  of  increasing 
complexity  of  organ  and  function  it  culminated 
in  man.  There  is,  tlierefore,  evolution  in  the 
organic  world,  as  science  has  already  traced  it  in 
the  inorganic.  But  the  cause  of  this  evolutionary 
movement  in  the  history  of  organisms  has  not  as 
yet  been  established  ;  though  it  is  probable  Dar- 
win's natural  selection  is  a  part  of  the  cause.  In 
other  words,  we  know  that  there  has  been  evolu- 
tion, but  we  are  not  yet  certain  how  it  has  been 


I 


9!    I 


|;   '! 


11 

If  I 


72 


The  Missing  Evidence, 


brought  about ;  we  know,  as  Dr.  Martineau  puts 
it,  the  when  of  evohition,  but  not  the  whence. 

That  the  missing  evidence  in  the  evolutionary 
theory  of  causation  may  yet  be  supplied,  everyone 
who  has  felt  the  divine  impulse  to  science  will 
ardently  hope,  as  the  more  enthusiastic,  indeed, 
confidently  predict.  In  fact,  the  belief  in  the  ul- 
timate perfectibility,  if  not  in  the  present  perfec- 
tion, of  the  doctrine  has  become  a  part  of  the 
scientific  fanaticism  with  which  our  age  matches 
the  religious  fanaticism  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
And  so  it  happens  that  the  majority  of  readers 
are  scarcely  aware  of  the  hitches  in  the  Darwinian 
argument  any  more  than  they  were  formerly  aware 
of  the  intellectual  diflBculties  in  the  way  of  many 
accepted  theological  dogmas.  For  all  such  minds, 
now,  any  inquiry  into  the  ethical  significance  of 
Darwinism  will  be  without  weight  unless  the 
theory  in  its  entirety  be  accepted  as  initial  truth. 
I  propose,  therefore,  without  further  ado,  to  as- 
sume, for  argument's  sake,  that  the  Darwinian 
hypothesis  has  been  completely  established  ;  and 
I  would,  then,  invite  Darwinists  to  join  me  in  an 
impartial  attempt  to  interpret  that  hypothesis, 
and  to  determine  its  bearings  upon  the  problems 
of  morals.  Whether  there  actually  exists,  as  the 
late  George  Henry  Lewes  imagined,  a  wide-spread 


iiMiiiiftiiijiiiiiiiii 


Hi 


Evolutionism  and  Darwinism,      73 


fear  and  dread  of  science,  I  shall  not  pretend  to 
determine ;  but  if  it  exists,  it  is  certainly  an  an- 
achronism. For  the  scientist  is  the  veritable  niler 
of  the  modern  world.  And,  for  my  own  part,  I 
can  understand  no  feeling  but  that  of  admiration 
and  loyalty  towards  the  man  who,  from  no  other 
motive  than  the  simple  love  of  truth,  gives  his 
days  and  nights  for  weary  years  to  spelling  out 
that  mystic  language  which  God  has  illuminated 
by  the  central  fires  of  the  world,  traced  in  the 
orbits  of  planets,  graven  upon  the  strata  of  the 
earth's  crust,  and  sent  echoing  round  the  great 
globe  in  the  rhythmic  pulse-beat  of  all  organic  life. 
Such  men  were  Kepler,  Faraday,  Agassiz,  and 
Darwin.  Thanks  to  these,  and  such  as  these,  we 
can  to-day  read  a  little  in  nature's  book  of  infinite 
secrecy.  The  gradual  development  of  all  organic 
and  inorganic  existence  they  seem  already  to  have 
completely  spelled  out.  How  that  development 
was  effected  in  the  domain  of  life  is  still  a  mys- 
tery ;  but  for  argument's  sake,  I  repeat,  we  are 
ready  to  let  Darwin's  hypothesis  of  "  NatuL-^l  Se- 
lection" stand  for  the  yet  undeciphered  hiero- 
glyphic. 


J 


1 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   PHILOSOPHICAL   INTERPRETATION   OF   THE   DAR- 
WINIAN   HYPOTHESIS. 

The  function  of  natural  selection  in  the  origi- 
nation of  species  of  plants  and  animals  has,  I  trust, 
been  sufficiently  described  and  illustrated  in  tlio 
preceding  chapter.  "We  must  now  go  on  to  in- 
quire into  the  philosophical  significance  of  tlie 
doctrine.  And,  obviously,  the  main  point  can 
be  no  other  than  a  precise  determination  of  what 
it  really  is  that  natural  selection  explains,  as  well 
as  of  what  is  left  unexplained  by  it,  in  the  origin 
of  species  of  organic  beings. 

Scientific  explanation  consists  in  the  assign- 
ment of  a  phenomenon  to  its  causes.  These  causes 
must  be  known  natural  agencies.  It  may  well  be, 
indeed,  that  speculative  reason  is  unable  to  stop 
at  such  causes,  involving,  as  they  do,  an  inconceiv- 
able regression  in  infinitum  /  but  it  is  solely  of 
these  secondary  causes  that  science  takes  account. 
And  when  this  limitation  of  its  province  is  con- 
sidered, it  must  be  conceded  that  science  is  clearly 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism.     75 


in  the  right  in  refusing  to  recognize  supernatural 
activity  as  a  relevant  explanation  of  natural  phe- 
uotnena. 

But  it  was  a  dogma  of  this  kind  which  Darwin 
found  in  the  biology  of  his  day  regarding  the  ori- 
gin of  species.  He  substituted  for  it  a  scientific 
liypotliesis  of  the  development  of  life  by  means 
of  purely  natural  causes.  He  did  not  deny  the 
ultimate  creative  or  preservative  agency  of  God, 
with  which  as  a  biologist  he  was  not  called  upon 
to  deal ;  nor  is  his  theory  at  bottom  a  contradic- 
tion of  the  essence  of  that  theological  doctrine, 
for  the  two  belong  to  totally  different  orders  of 
interpretation.  With  complete  neutrality  towards 
such  speculative  matters,  he  asserted  merely  that 
the  manifestation  of  life  on  our  globe  was 
through  a  process  of  evolution,  of  which  natural 
selection  was  the  proximate  cause,  be  the  ulti- 
mate cause  what  it  may.  Whether  this  hypoth- 
esis be  true  or  not,  it  is  at  least  an  attempt  to 
solve  the  scientific  problem  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  simply  overleaped  by  the  transcendental 
doctrine  of  divine  creation.  It  is  the  only  kind 
of  explanation  that  science  can  consider  legiti- 
mate. 

The  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for — the  ori- 
gin of  species — is  by  Darwin   referred  to  verm 


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76 


Scientific  Explanation, 


cattscB,  to  agencies  actually  known  to  be  in  opera- 
tion. The  excessive  fecundity  of  all  organic  be- 
ings, the  limited  means  of  subsistence,  the  inev- 
itable struggle  for  life,  the  advantage  accruing, 
in  this  struggle,  to  some  individuals  in  conse- 
quence of  slight  modifications  in  organ  or  func- 
tion, structure  or  habit,  such  as  nature  in  liberal 
variety  is  perennially  turning  up,  the  preserva- 
tion of  these  favored  forms,  and  the  consolidation 
and  accumulation,  through  transmission  to  sue- 
cessive  generations,  of  their  beneficial  peculiar- 
ities until  first  varieties  and  then  species  are  pro- 
duced— these  are  facts  which  every  .observer 
may  verify  for  himself,  and  which,  it  is  almost 
universally  conceded,  account  for  the  origin  of 
many,  if  not  of  all,  organic  species.  And  for  the 
scientist  who  finds  no  species  too  marked  for  gen- 
esis through  this  common  process  the  problem 
has  been  completely  solved. 

But  w^here  science  ends  philosophy  begins. 
The  one  is  concerned  with  the  discovery  of  pro- 
cesses, the  other  has  to  analyze  the  ultimates — 
realities  or  conceptions,  being  or  thought — which 
the  processes  everywhere  involve.  While  science, 
accordingly,  sees  no  difference  between  the  vari- 
ous links  of  the  causal  chain  with  which  Darwin 
draws  out  the  development  of  life,  philosophy 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     'jy 

fixes  at  once  npon  a  fundamental  contrast  between 
the  initial  variations  and  the  subsequent  means 
of  their  preservation.  It  regards  the  former  as 
infinitely  more  significant  than  the  latter.  For  the 
variations  are  the  ultimate  material  out  of  which 
species  are  built  up ;  and  though  the  manner  of 
their  consolidation  is  an  important  problem  for 
science,  philosophy  is  interested  only  in  the 
what?  And  whence  f  of  the  variations  themselves. 
Or,  otherwise  expressed,  every  new  species  being 
the  sum  of  a  seiies  of  variations,  philosophy  is 
concerned  with  the  units,  science  with  the  mode 
of  their  addition.  And  this  mode  it  is  which 
Darwin  has  u.ifolded  in  his  theory  of  natural  selec- 
tion, or  survival  of  the  fittest.  There  have  been 
objections  to  the  theory,  especially  to  the  somewhat 
startling  assumption  that  the  results  of  man's  pur- 
posive selection  in  breeding  could  be  attained — 
and  that,  toe,  on  a  much  larger  scale — by  the  blind 
and  purposeless  operations  of  nature  ;  but  grant- 
ing all  that  the  hypothesis  requires  of  us,  we  are 
slill  in  presence  of  the  fact  that  natural  selection, 
or  survival  of  the  fittest,  can  accomplish  nothing 
until  it  is  supplied  with  material  for  "  selection," 
until  there  has  appeared  upon  the  field  an  ante- 
cedent "  fittest " — a  fittest  organ,  function,  habit, 
instinct,  constitution,  or  entire  organism.    Katu- 


.i»'' 


f%  Philosophic  Explanation. 


i  : 


ral  selection  produces  nothing ;  it  only  cnlls  from 
what  is  already  in  existence.  The  survival  of  the 
fitt&bt  is  an  eliininative,  not  an  originative,  process. 
And  yet  it  is  the  explication  of  this  apparently 
subsidiary  process  that  constitutes  Darwinism. 
The  fact  of  variations  in  organic  beings  having 
been  demonstrated  from  the  experience  of  breed- 
ers, the  sphinx  of  science  was  the  problem  of  their 
accuinulation  into  specific  characters.  It  was  not 
the  business  of  biology  to  consider  what  the  fact 
of  variations  implied.  That  falls  to  philosophy, 
whose  function  it  \'-  >  exam-ine  the  starting- 
points  and  first  principles  with  which  the  various 
sciences  uncritically  set,  about  their  specific  task. 

The  survival  of  the  fittest,  I  repeat,  does  not 
explain  the  arrival  of  the  fittest.  Natural  selec- 
tion is  a  term  connoting  the  fact  that  of  the  in- 
numerable vlhiations  occurring  in  organisms  only 
the  most  beneficial  are  preserved,  but  it  indicates 
nothing  concerning  the  origin  or  nature  of  these 
variations.  As  in  them,  however,  is  ^^veloped 
all  that  is  subsequently  <?gveloped,  tiiey  form  the 
sole  ground  for  philosophizing  in  connection  with 
Darwinian  science. 

Fortunately,  too,  Darwin  and  his  followers 
Lave  not  left  us  in  utter  darkness  with  regard 
to  the  rise  of  these  modifications,  which,  as  we 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     79 

have  jnst  said,  constitute  the  material  for  natural 
selection.  In  the  earlier  editions  of  the  "  Origin 
of  Species  "  much  influence  was  ascribed  to  the 
external  conditions  of  life,  which  Geoffrey  Saint 
Hilaire,  a  generation  before,  had  declared  the 
principal  cause  of  change.  But  apart  from  the 
environment,  Darwin  always  maintained,  with 
Lamarck,  that  habit,  or  use  and  disuse,  played  a 
considerable  part  in  the  modification  of  the  con- 
stitution and  structure.  Thus  if,  as  is  the  case, 
the  bones  of  the  wing  of  the  domestic  duck  weigh 
less  and  the  bones  of  the  leg  more,  in  proportion 
to  the  whole  skeleton,  than  do  the  same  bones  in 
the  wild  duck,  the  change  may  be  safely  attrib- 
uted, he  tells  us,  to  the  domestic  duck  flying 
much  less  and  walking  niore  than  its  wild  par- 
ents. Lastly,  there  are  modifications  which  emerge 
as  concomitants  or  indirect  effects  of  other  modifi- 
cations. The  whole  organisn^  is  so  conjoined  and 
knitted  together  during  its  growth  and  develop- 
ment, that  when  slight  variations  occur  and  are 
accumulated  in  one  part,  other  parts  become  modi- 
fied, too.  A  curious  instance  of  this  correlated 
variation,  not  in  process,  but  in  complete  realiza- 
tion, is  presented  by  the  uniform  conjunction  of 
deafness  with  blue  eyes  in  perfectly  white  c/,t^. 
But  however  much  be  ascribed  to  the  influence 


^ 


'll 


i 


:! 


80        The  Origin  of  Modifications, 

of  external  conditions,  of  habit,  and  of  correla- 
tion, Darwin  found  these  factors  incompetent  to 
produce  the  variations  presupposed  for  natural 
selection  in  liis  theory  of  the  origin  of  species. 
Accordingly,  while  they  retain  their  place  in  the 
later  editions  of  his  work,  they  are  there  over- 
shadowed by  a  more  potent  cause  of  modification, 
which  is  nothing  less  than  a  forre  inherent  in  the 
organism  itself — "  an  innate  tendency  to  new  va- 
riations "  or  a  "  spontaneous  variability,"  as  it  is 
indifferently  called.  The  environment  is,  I  have 
said,  still  recognized  as  one  of  the  factors  of 
change ;  but  since  it  is  shown  that  similar  varie- 
ties are  produced  from  the  same  species  in  differ- 
ent environments,  and  dissimilar  varieties  in  the 
same  environment,  it  is  established  that  the  nat- 
ure of  the  organism  is  a  much  more  important 
factor  than  the  nature  of  the  external  conditions 
of  life.  "We  clearly  see,"  sa^^s  Darwin,  "that 
the  nature  of  the  conditions  is  of  subordinate  im- 
portance, in  comparison  with  the  naturo  of  the 
organism,  in  determining  each  particular  form  of 
variation ;  perhaps  of  not  more  importance  than 
the  nature  of  the  spark,  by  which  a  mass  of 
combustible  matter  is  ignited,  has  in  determining 
the  nature  of  the  flames."  And  if  he  objects  to 
Nageli's  or  Mivart's  formulation  of  an  innate 


> 


i 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,    8i 

tendency  towards  progreseive  and  mora  jperfect 
development,  it  is  only  because  the  phrase  seemed 
to  suggest  an  '^  internal  force  beyond  the  ten- 
dency to  ordinary  variability,"  not  that  he  did 
not  agree  with  them  in  holding  to  some  kind  ol 
an  "  inherent  tendency  to  vary." 

This,  then,  is  our  first  determination  regarding 
the  variations  which  supply  material  for  natural 
selection  to  work  upon.  They  originate,  wo  know 
not  how,  in  the  nature  of  the  organism.  Nor 
would  the  state  of  the  case  bo  essentially  altered 
if  it  were  ""--^monstrated,  in  opposition  to  Darwin, 
that  every  organic  modification  was  occasioned 
by  some  external  stimulus.  For  the  change  thus 
set  up  in  the  organism  in  response  to  the  foreign 
excitation  would  obviously  derive  its  character 
from  the  constitution  of  the  organism,  just  as,  to 
use  Darwin's  own  example,  the  peculiarity  of  a 
flame  is  due  to  the  constitution  of  the  combustible 
materials,  and  not  to  the  igniting  spark. 

So  much  of  the  origin  of  the  variations.     With 

regard  to  their  nature,  it  may  be  either  definite 

or  indefinite.     That  is  to  say,  the  offspring  of 

individuals  exposed  to  given   conditions  during 

several  generations  may  be  modified  in  a  similar 

or  a  dissimilar  manner.     Indefinite  variability  is 

the  general  rule,  according  to  Darwin,  who,  in 
6 


i 


82  Their  Indefinite  Character, 

fact,  takes  account  of  no  other  in  his  tlieory  of 
the  origin  of  species.  He  seems  to  conceive  of 
the  organization  as  absohitely  plastic,  in  unsta- 
ble equilibrium,  and  only  apparently  at  rest  at 
a  point  radiating  infinite  directions  for  further 
movement.  The  variations,  being  altogether  in- 
definite, offer  themselves  to  natural  selection  for 
any  line  of  development,  but  not  for  any  partic- 
ular line.  And  Darwin  was  accordingly  supposed 
to  have  substituted  chance  for  design,  a  fortui- 
tous evolution  for  a  purposive  creation.  It  turns 
out,  however,  that  his  assertion  of  indefinite  va- 
riability was  premature,  and  that  in  any  case  it 
lias  no  necessary  connection  with  natural  selec- 
tion, which,  according  to  the  latest  statement  of 
Professor  Huxley,  would  operate  equally  well 
"  if  variability  is  definite,  anr'  is  determined  in 
certain  directions  rather  than  in  pthers,  by  con- 
ditions inherent  in  that  which  varies."  And  the 
advance  in  doctrine  is  still  more  strikingly  illus- 
trated when.  Prof essor  Huxley  goes  on  to  say, "  it 
is  quite  conceivable  that  every  species  tends  to 
produce  varieties  of  a  limited  number  and  kind, 
and  that  the  effect  of  natural  selectioji  is  to  favor 
the  development  of  some  of  tjiese,^  while  it  op- 
poses the  development  of  others  along  their  pre- 
determined line  of  modification."     This  limita-* 


i\ 


«; 


V 


TAe  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     83 

tion  of  the  number  of  variations  and  the  prede- 
termination of  their  character  are  conceptions 
foreign,  I  believe,  to  Darwin's  habitual  mode  of 
thought,  but  they  may  now  be  considered  tenets 
of  the  school ;  and  Professor  Asa  Gray,  adopting 
categorically  the  suggestion  of  Professor  Huxley, 
declares,  "  The  facts,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  do 
not  support  the  assumption  of  every-sided  and  in- 
difterent  variations." 

The  nature  and  the  origin  of  the  modifica- 
tions being  described,  we  have  next  to  fix  atten- 
tion upon  the  process  of  their  accumulation  into 
specific  characters.  It  is  the  exhibition  of  this 
process  that  constitutes  the  peculiar  glory  of  Dar- 
winian science.  And  to  science,  certainly,  as  the 
register  of  nature's  operations,  the  whole  subject 
of  natural  selection  properly  belongs.  But  when 
the  designation  for  a  purely  natural  process  has, 
through  the  suggestions  of  metaphor  and  the  use 
of  capital  letters,  come  to  stand  for  something 
more  than  a  process,  and,  from  constant  association 
with  an  extraneous  metaphysics,  has  acquired  the 
potency  of  a  conjurer's  formula  in  the  philoso- 
phy of  life,  mind,  and  conscience,  it  is  high  time 
to  set  about  the  perf^nnial  problem  of  laying  the 
dust  raised  by  dogmatic  metaphysicians,  who  are 
all  the  more  insidious  when  they  disown  their 


84 


How  Accumulated. 


vocation  and  como  to  ns  in  the  name  of  posi- 
tive Bcienco  with  the  prestige  that  science  gives. 
Darwinism,  iike  every  great  principle  when  first 
discovered,  intoxicated  and  unbalanced  its  dev- 
otees ;  with  license  unrestrained,  it  has  been  ap- 
plied to  fundamental  problems  of  the  natural  and 
the  spiritual  world.  But  the  ultimate  mysteries  of 
existence  forever  baffle,  as  they  ever  fascinate,  the 
scientific  understanding  of  man,  and  an  age  of  confi- 
dent construction  is  always  followed  by  an  aveng- 
ing age  of  destructive  ciiticism ;  so  that  the  high- 
towering,  wide-extending  edifice  under  which  but 
yesterday  intellectual  mankind  reposed  in  peace  is 
seen  to-morrow  as  a  conventional  structure,  whose 
former  magnitude  Mid  splendor  arose  solely  from 
an  optical  illusion  distorting  the  perspective  and 
true  relations  of  things.  It  is  with  such  specula- 
tions as  with  the  pandemonic  coimcillors  : 


I 


"  They  but  now  who  seem*d 
In  bigness  to  surpass  Earth's  giant  sons, 
Now  less  than  smallest  dwarfs,  in  narrow  room 
Throng  numberless,  like  that  Pygmean  race 
Beyond  the  Indian  mount,  or  farey  elves." 


In  the  march  of  mind,  if  the  discovery  of  new 
theories  is  indispensable,  equally  so  is  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  monstrous  shapes  which  they  too  soon 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism^     85 

assume  to  oormal  proportions  conformable  to 
reality.  And  ponding  tlie  morrow  of  the  Dar- 
winian and  post-Darwinian  speculations,  we  may 
to-day  examine  what  natui'al  selection  is  and 
what  it  is  not,  what  it  can  do  and  what  it  can- 
not do. 

To  maintain  that  Darwin,  who  has  taught 
us  all  we  know  about  the  subject,  gives  an  incor- 
rect account  of  natural  selection  would  of  course 
be  paradoxical.  Kor,  in  the  absence  of  new  light 
from  scientific  discoveries,  is  anyone  likely  to 
hazard  such  a  judgment.  Kevertheless,  it  will 
be  found  that  whoever  is  resolute  to  see  clearly 
the  fact  which  Darwin  means  to  indicate  by  the 
term  ''  natural  selection  "  must  look  beneath  the 
phraseology  in  which  it  is  described,  else  the  es- 
sence of  the  matter  will  be  missed  amid  the 
distracting  associations  of  highly  figurative  lan- 
guage. 

Kot,  of  course,  that  metaphors  are  unhitelligible, 
or  even  undesirable.  Only  the  recollection  of  the 
warring  creeds  that  have  sprung  from  biblical 
imagery,  and  of  the  opposing  systems  of  philos- 
ophy that  have  turned  on  the  comparison  of  the 
mind  to  a  waxen  tablet,  suggests  the  necessity  of 
looking  away  from  a  metaphorical  expression  like 
natural  selection  to  the  actual  fact  which  it  was 


86  Metaphorical  Explanation, 

intended  to  denote.  Kovv,  that  fact,  in  utter 
nakedness,  is  nothing  more  than  the  survival,  in 
the  struggle  for  life,  of  an  individual  that  has 
somehow  undergone  modifications  useful  to  it 
under  the  actual  conditions  of  existence.  Or,  iu 
Darwin's  own  words,  "This  preservation  of  fa- 
vorable individual  differences  and  variations,  and 
the  destruction  o^  those  which  are  injurious,  I 
have  called  Natural  Selection,  or  the  Survival  of 
the  Fittest."  The  process,  therefore,  does  not 
touch  the  origin  of  the  variations,  or  even  the 
accumulation  of  them.  Natural  selection  pro- 
duces nothing,  either  at  the  beginning  or  in  the 
progress  of  tiie  development ;  it  means  only  that 
when  the  variafioiis  have  somehow  appeared  the 
most  advantageous  are  preserved,  and  that  when 
tliese  favored  fonna  heme  heen  somehow  jpro^Or- 
gated,  and  tlierehy  somehow  consolidated,  the  most 
favored  again  survive  in  the  struggle.  Nature 
originates  the  modifications,  nature  propagates 
them,  nature  accumulates  them  through  propaga- 
gation  ;  but  how  all  this  is  done  is  a  mystery  on 
which  science  throws  no  light,  and  the  personifi- 
cation of  nature  serves  only  to  disguise  our  real 
ignorance.  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  under- 
stand from  the  well-known  fact  of  the  increase 
of  life  beyond  the  means  of  subsistence  that, 


^ 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     87 

given  the  creations,  the  transmissions)  the  arcu- 
mulationd)  tlio  worst  favored  must  perish  and 
only  the  fittest  survive  ;  and  this  fact  it  is — this 
single  ray  of  light  athwart  a  path  of  darkness 
unpenetrated  —  that  Darwin  designates  natural 
selection. 

Now,  the  personification  of  nature  is  quite  legit- 
imate, and  often  unavoidable.  But  when  a  more 
event  of  nature,  like  the  one  we  have  just  de- 
scribed, comes  to  be  invested  with  a  title  so  sug- 
gestive of  volitional  attributes  as  "  Natural  Selec- 
tion "  is,  the  imagination  cannot  fail  to  run  riot 
with  the  understanding,  and  the  mind  is  apt  to 
become  the  slave  of  what  Bacon  calls  the  idola 
fori.  It  would  indeed  be  in  itself  a  thankless 
task  to  point  out  the  warping  influence  of  met- 
aphorical language  on  the  mind  of  a  great  in- 
vestigator like  Darwin,  but  when  his  lapses 
(which  may  do  no  harm  in  science)  are  made  the 
grounds  of  a  metaphysical  and  ethical  philoso- 
phy, the  task,  however  ungrateful,  nmst  be  under- 
taken. 

The  term  natural  selection  is  borrowed  by 
analogy  fix)m  that  purposive  selection  practised 
by  man  in  the  rearing  of  domesticated  animals 
and  cultivated  plants.  We  have  already  seen  that 
breeders  form  varieties  that  pass  for  ^^  incipient 


88         What  Man  does  in  Selection* 


n 


Bpecies."  This  re&nlt  is  due  .o  the  accamnlation 
in  one  direction,  dnring  many  generations,  of 
slight  difFereuceSy  differences  that  may  be  wholly 
inappreciable  to  the  uneducated  eye  and  touch. 
**  The  key,"  Bays  Darwin,  "  is  man's  power  of 
accumulative  selection ;  nature  gives  snccessive 
variations ;  man  adds  them  up  in  certain  direc- 
tions (isef  ul  to  him. "  Now,  this  mode  of  language 
(of  which  I  have  hitherto  availed  myself)  is  not 
capable  of  misinterpretation  in  relation  to  man  ; 
for  everybody  knows  it  is  only  by  metaphor  that 
man  can  be  said  to  have  the  power  of  accunmlat- 
ing  variations  or  adding  them  up.  It  is  very 
manifest  that  man  can  do  nothing  towards  the  re- 
sult except  leave  the  varieties  that  please  him  fi  ee 
to  breed  together.  As  it  is  nature  that  gives  the 
modifications,  so  it  is  nature  that  consolidates 
them ;  man's  power  is  limited  to  selecting  from 
the  materials  given  by  nature  that  on  which  he 
wishes  her  further  to  operate.  But  that  simple 
intervention  does  not  explain  the  accumulation 
any  more  than  the  origination  of  variations ;  and, 
for  the  rest,  we  have  to  confess  that  "  the  laws 
governing  inheritance  are  for  the  most  part  un- 
known." The  breeder's  conscious  selection,  then, 
is  not  the  cause,  but  at  most  the  negative  condi- 
tion, of  the  origin  of  domestic  races. 


f\ 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     89 

Now,  in  organic  beings  in  a  state  of  nature  the 
struggle  for  life  effects  what  man's  purposive 
selection  effects  for  domesticated  animals ;  by  re- 
moving other  forms  it  leaves  only  those  with  cer- 
tain peculiar  modifications  free  to  breed  together. 
It  is  true  that  in  the  one  case  these  modifications 
are  such  as  are  pleasing  or  useful  to  man  ;  in  the 
other  they  are  snch  as  are  serviceable  to  the  indi- 
vidual in  its  competition  with  rivals.  "Man  selects 
only  for  his  own  good ;  nature  only  for  that  of  the 
being  which  she  tends."  But  the  main  point  is 
that,  just  as  domestic  varieties  arise  from  the  se- 
lective breeding  practised  by  man,  natural  varie- 
ties, which  are  "  incipient  species,"  arise  from 
that  selective  breeding  due  to  the  killing  out  of 
competing,  but  less-favored,  forms  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence.  And  this  natural  selection, 
Darwin  holds,  is  as  much  superior  to  human  se- 
lection as  the  works  of  nature  are  to  art.  "  As 
man,"  he  tells  us  in  a  striking  passage, "  can  pro- 
duce a  great  result  with  his  domestic  animals  and 
plants  by  adding  up  in  any  given  direction  indi- 
vidual differences,  fo  could  natural  selection,  but 
far  more  easily,  from  having  incomparably  longer 
time  for  action." 

It  has  been  objected  that  this  attribution  of 
superior  potency  to  natu  .al  selection,  in  compari- 


i  I'l 


90     Human  and  Natural  Selection, 

son  witli  the  purposive  selection  of  man, involves 
the  conception  of  nature  as  an  intelligent,  active 
-jeing.  Kature  seems  to  do  so  mucli,  it  is  urged, 
only  because  you  have  personified  her ;  use  un- 
metaphorical  language,  and  you  '^ill  not  make  it 
credible  that  blind  natural  processes  can  ever  at- 
tain the  ends  realized  by  human  design.  But 
iliis  dogmatism  cannot  be  established.  For  it 
is  certainly  conceivable  that  that  selective  breed- 
ing by  which  man  works  all  his  results  might  be 
brought  about  without  the  intervention  of  man. 
All  that  is  required  is  that  organic  beings  which 
have  nndergone  some  modification  shall  bo  al- 
lowed to  propagate  it,  say,  to  breed  together  \  and 
this  would  result  as  inevitably  from  the  extermi- 
nation of  all  competing  forms  as  from  the  exclu- 
sion of  them  practised  by  man.  But  extermina- 
tion does  take  place  when  variations  occur  in  any 
individual  which  give  it  an  advantage  over  its 
rivals  in  the  struggle  for  life ;  and  since  varia- 
tions useful  to  man  do  actually  occur  in  organic 
beings,  it  would  be  a  m  'St  extraordinary  fact  if 
none  occurred  useful  to  the  beings  themselves, 
especially  when  we  consider  the  vast  possibili- 
ties for  such  useful  variations  contained  in  the  in- 
finitely complex  relations  of  all  organic  beings  to 
one  another  and  to  their  environment.    Assum- 


I 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     91 

ing,  then,  that  such  advantageous  modifications 
somehow  arise,  the  beings  thus  characterized  will 
have  the  best  chance  of  'i:»ein<^  preserved  ;  and 
these  serviceable  peculiarities  will  be  propagated 
and,  in  successive  generations,  consolidated  until 
there  emerge  at  last  varieties,  as  strongly,  or  more 
strongly  marked  than  our  domestic  races.  But 
this  preservation,  or  survival  of  the  fittest,  is  what 
Darwin  calU  natural  selection.  And  it  must 
now  be  evident  that  we  have  the  best  grounds  for 
comparing  its  function  in  the  development  of 
species  with  man^s  function  in  the  formation  of 
domestic  races. 

Not  the  likening  of  nature's  work  to  man's, 
but  the  assignment  to  both  natural  and  human 
selection  of  results  which  they  are  incompetent  to 
produce,  is  the  real  valid  objection  to  Darwin's 
presentation  of  his  theory.  We  have  already 
seen  that  man  can  no  more  accumulate  variations 
than  he  can  produce  them;  accumulation  is 
simply  a  continuous  production.  And  yet,  while 
Darwiii  concedes  to  Hooker  and  Asa  Gray  that 
man  "  can  neither  originate  varieties  nor  prevent 
their  occurrence,"  it  is  added — and  that,  too,  in 
passing  from  human  to  natural  selection — that 
"  he  can  only  preserve  and  accumulate  such  as  do 
occur."     Only  aceumidate  /  And  then,  of  course, 


92 


Limits  to  Both. 


I  \ 


it  is  assnmed  that  natural  eelection  aconmnlates, 
too.  "  It  may  metaphorically  be  said  that  natu- 
ral selection  is  daily  and  hourly  scrutinizing, 
throughout  the  world,  the  slightest  variations ; 
rejecting  those  that  are  bad,  preserving  and  add- 
ing  tip  all  that  are  good."  And  since  natural 
selection  is  the  name  of  an  event  that  follows 
from  physical  causes,  the  reader  gets  the  impres- 
sion that  the  origin  of  species  has  at  last  been 
referred  to  a  system  of  purely  natural  causation. 
But  the  true  state  of  the  case  is  very  different. 
"No  cause  has  been  discovered  for  the  origin  of 
those  variations  which,  through  inheritance,  are 
accumulated  into  specific  characters ;  and  the 
theist  who  formerly  believed  in  a  supernatural 
cause  may  hold  to  it  still,  if  he  only  substitute 
gradual  for  sudden  creation.  Do  you  say  we 
need  not  postulate  a  transcendent  cause  ?  Possi- 
bly not ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  Darwinism,  in 
the  theory  of  natural  selection,  to  take  the  func- 
tion assigned  to  that  supernatural  power.  If 
you  refer  the  origination  and  accumulation  of 
variations  to  nature,  it  is  not  the  nature  known 
to  science,  nature  as  a  complex  of  phenomena 
governed  by  physical  laws,  but  the  poet's 
vision : 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     93 

"Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfnsed, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 


But  this  conception  of  nature,  however  true, 
is  foreign  to  that  system  of  efficient  causes  with 
which  alone  scientific  explanation  is  concerned. 
If  the  scientist,  in  poetic  exaltation,  feels  with 
Pope  that  "  God  and  nature  only  are  the  same," 
or  with  Goethe  that  "  nature  is  the  living  garment 
of  God,"  he  mav  speak  of  the  variations  out  of 
which  specific  characters  are  built  up  as  having 
natural  causes,  but  he  then  uses  the  word  "  natu- 
ral "  much  in  the  same  sense  as  ordinary  people 
attach  to  "supernatural."  But  the  naturalist 
wh  >  recogn7zes  the  limits  of  science  will  have  to 
confess  that  variations  come  in  organisms  we 
know  not  whence,  and  are  accumulated  we  know 
not  how  (though  we  name  the  processes  varia- 
bility and  inheritance),  and  that  natural  selection 
is  only  a  designation  for  an  event  as  simple  as 
this — that  beings  with  the  most  serviceable  va- 
riations survive  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
Katui'al  selection  is  not  a  power,  scarcely  even  a 


!  ! 


; « 


94     The  Natural  and  the  Supernatural, 

process,  but  the  result  of  a  process — namely,  of 
that  sifting  of  forms  effected  through  the  all-test- 
iug  combat  for  life. 

If  this  analysis  of  the  fundamental  conceptions 
of  the  Darwinian  theory  be  correct,  much  less  is 
really  'explained  by  that  theory  than  its  advocates 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  supposing.  In  spite 
of  its  prolific  application  to  so  many  fields  of  in- 
quiry, one  may  still  question  whether  in  its  na- 
tive province  of  biology  the  account  given  of  the 
origin  of  species  is  not  ultimately  as  supernatural 
as  the  dogma  which  it  displaced.  It  was  rightly 
urged  against  the  latter  that  creation  was  not  a 
scientific  conception,  that  explanation  consisted  in 
correlating  a  phenomenon  with  other  phenomena 
and  assigning  it  a  place  in  the  tissue  of  our  ex- 
perience, and  therefore  that  the  reference  of 
species  to  a  Creator  was  a  mode  of  accounting  for 
them  with  which  science  could  not  be  cor.tent. 
But  does  the  Darwinian  theory  enable  us  to  rest 
in  purely  natural  causation  ?  It  tells  us  that 
species  are  the  strongly  marked  varieties  that  sur- 
vive in  the  struggle  for  life,  and  that  these  va- 
rieties are  formed  by  the  consolidation  of  modi- 
fications that  spontaneously  arise  in  organisms. 
Here  everything  is  assumed  with  the  primitive 
organisms  and   their  innate  tendency   to  vary. 


^1 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     95 

Has  not  tlie  mystery  tliat  sbrouded  the  origin  of 
species  been  removed  simply  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  new  mystery — the  wonder  of  an  organ- 
ism so  constituted  that  it  throws  off  progressive 
modifications  as  materials  for  new  species  ?  That 
science  may  ultimately  show  such  variability  to 
be  a  characteristic  of  organisms  I  do  not  as- 
sert or  deny.  My  only  contention  is  that  that 
aspect  of  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  species 
which  led  men  to  refer  them  to  a  hyperphys- 
ical  pgency  would  not  thereby  be  removed ; 
it  would  still  reappear  in  the  question,  "Whence 
those  germinal  organisms  with  their  wonderful 
capabilities  of  difFeientiating  into  species ?  And 
to  this  question  there  is  no  satisfactory  answer 
within  the  province  of  natural  or  physical  causa- 
tion. So  that  ultimately  it  comes  to  this — the 
gradual  development  of  species  is  one  mode  of 
conceiving  the  action  of  supernatural  causality, 
the  sudden  formation  of  them  is  another.  Dar- 
winism is  an  assertion  that  the  former  mode  has 
actually  been  followed,  not  a  denial  of  the  super- 
natnral  ground  which  both  processes  presuppose. 
If  the  "  Origin  of  Species  "  opens  with  the  thesis 
that  species  are  not  independent  and  immutable 
creations,  but  variable  descendants  of  common 
ancestral  forms,  it  closes  with  the  credo  that  it 


g6        DarwifCs  View  of  Creation, 

was  "by  the  Creator"  that  life  with  all  its 
potencies  was  "  originally  breathed  "  into  these 
ultimate  types.  Between  this  closing  and  that 
opening  declaration  stands  the  principle  of  natu- 
ral selection,  which  implies  that,  of  all  the  varie- 
ties produced  by  the  spontaneous  evolutions  of  the 
descendants  of  those  divinely  created  types,  only 
the  fittest  or  most  favored  survive.  But  even 
this  sifting  process  has,  ultimately  regarded,  a 
supernatural  ground.  It  depends  upon  the  exist- 
ence of  germinal  organisms,  their  growth  with 
reproduction,  inheritance,  variability,  and  capa- 
city for  increase  beyond  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence— all  of  which  must  ultimately  be  attributed 
to  **  the  Creator,"  who,  according  to  Darwin, 
breathed  "  life  with  its  several  j)owers  "  into  the 
primitive  forms. 

To  evoluticnary  science  as  thus  unfolded  by 
Darwin,  or  to  evolutionary  science  pui'c  and  sim- 
ple without  any  such  theistic  reference,  it  is  not 
competent  to  philosophy  to  offer  any  objection. 
Biology  is  clearly  within  its  own  province  when 
it  follows  the  history  of  organisms  and  delineates 
the  processes  or  steps  by  which  life  has  been 
evolved.  To  this  scientific  investigation  Darwin- 
ism makes  a  twofold  contribution.  It  established, 
from  actual  experiments  with  animals  under  do- 


'■ 


y 


.' 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism.     97 

mestication,  the  modifiability  of  organisms,  and 
tints  g/ounded  the  piesumption  that  species  had 
been  gradually  formed.  And,  in  the  second 
place,  under  the  guidance  of  Malthusianism  it 
showed  that  the  world  is  inhabited  by  its  present 
denizens,  and  not  by  others,  in  consequence  of  the 
superiority  of  their  modifications  over  those  of 
their  n/als  in  the  general  struggle  for  existence. 
This  is  the  essential  content  of  Darwinism.  And 
it'  is  manifestly  consistent  with  any  philosophy, 
empirical  or  rational,  spiritualistic  or  material- 
istic, theistic  or  atheistic. 

Nevertheless,  I  thnik  every  reader  of  the  "  Ori- 
gin of  Species  "  would  maintain  that  it  seems  to 
explain  something  more  than  the  natural  processes 
just  indicated,  and  that,  further,  it  is  so  far  from 
indifferent  to  philosophy  that  it  draws  much  of  its 
inspiration  from  a  definite  speculative  system — 
a  system,  too,  essentially  opposed  to  that  theism 
which  the  author  occasionally  appropriates.  And 
there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  fact  that  most  of 
the  evolutionists  have  identified  the  new  doctrine 
with  a  philosophy  of  mechanism  and  fortuity. 
By  pure  physical  causation  they  hold  tliat  every- 
thing has  been  produced  from  a  primeval  nebula, 
or  gas-cloud.     It  was  in  the  beginning,  and  it  has 

evolved  life,  intelligence,  self-consciousness,  all 
7 


!l 


W    1 


11      ! 


98     Darwin  s  Mechanical  Philosophy, 

reason  in  man,  and  the  reflex  of  reason  in  the 
order  of  the  universe.  Tims  no  case  is  left  for 
any  hyperphysical  agency,  much  less  a  creative, 
designing  intelligence. 

But  neither  Darwinism  nor  evolutionism  in 
general  really  necessitates,  or  even  warrants,  such 
a  speculative  inference.  For  if  everything  has 
heen  evolved  from  that  impalpable  nebula,  either 
it  was  originally  inore  than  a  nebula  or  it  has  been 
added  to,  in  the  course  of  its  development,  from 
a  source  beyond  itself.  An  effect  is  simply  its 
cause  translated ;  and  nothing  can  be  developed 
into  actuality  which  was  not  enveloped  potentially 
in  the  germ.  If  a  primitive  ether  has  turned 
into  the  cosmos  with  all  that  inhabit  it,  this  evo- 
lution was  possible  only  by  the  constant  addition 
of  increments  which,  though  singly  so  inappreci- 
able as  to  pass  for  nothing,  are  in  their  aggregate 
so  infinite  that  they  constitute  everything  but 
ether.  Pow^er  adequate  to  the  result  there  must 
liave  been ;  and  it  makes  no  difference  whether 
it  be  "  concentrated  on  a  moment  or  distributed 
through  incalculable  ages."  And  it  surely  is,  as 
Dr.  Martineau  has  so  happJy  observed,  "  a  mean 
device  for  philosophers  thus  to  crib  causation  by 
hair's-breadths,  to  put  it  out  at  compound  inter- 
est through  all  time,  and  then  disown  the  debt." 


• 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,     99 

Tliis  jugglery  with  causality,  as  though  in  time 
everything  could  be  got  out  of  almost  nothing,  is 
the  besetting  sin  of  Darwinists.  In  Darwin  him- 
self it  takes  the  form  of  a  dissolution  of  design 
into  chance.  In  spite  of  his  own  admission  that 
variations  are  determined  by  the  nature  of  the 
organism,  and  that  the  ancestral  organisms  were 
divinely  created  and  stocked  with  all  the  poten- 
cies that  subsequently  unfold  theniselves,  the 
whole  tone  of  the  "  Origin  of  Species  "  implies 
that  organic  nature  has  been  blindly  shaped  by 
the  mechanical  operation  of  physical  agencies,  that 
instincts,  functions,  organs,  and  constitutions  are 
but  special  iiistances  of  order  that  survived  after 
the  collapse  of  innumerable  instances  of  disorder, 
which  the  reckless  gambling  of  natural  forces  has 
been  continuously  producing  since  the  first  dawn 
of  life  upon  our  earth.  The  normal  develop- 
ment seems  a  special  case  among  a  thousand. 
Instead  of  design,  there  is  only  a  happy  hit  amid 
countless  failures.  Or,  as  Lange,  rendering  Dar- 
win, graphically  illustrates  the  point :  You  would 
not  see  evidence  of  purpose,  much  less  of  higher 
wisdom  or  transcendent  cleverness,  in  the  conduct 
of  a  man  who,  to  kill  a  hare,  fired  a  million  pis- 
tols in  all  directions  over  a  vast  meadow ;  or 
who,  to  enter  a  locked  room,  bought  ten  thousand 


loo         Teleology  in  Darwinism* 


W 


i  t 

>.:■  r»i; 


,Mll 


II   I 


inndoin  keys  and  made  trial  of  them  all ;  or  wlio, 
to  have  a  house,  built  a  city  and  turned  the  su- 
perfluous houses  over  to  the  mercy  of  wind  and 
weather.  Thus  the  conception  of  design,  which 
Aristotle  required  for  the  understanding  of  all 
nature,  and  which  Kant  could  not  dispense  with 
in  reflecting  upon  organisms,  is  declared  at  last,  by 
the  Darwinist,  useless  in  science  and  unwarranted 
in  philosophy.  And  the  famous  argument  from 
final  causes,  which  Paley  illustrated  from  the 
adaptations  of  a  watch,  seems  to  collapse  at  the 
touch  of  Darwinism.  "  Suppose,"  says  an  emi- 
nent interpreter  of  that  theory, "  that  anyone  had 
been  able  to  show  that  the  watch  had  not  been 
made  directly  by  any  person,  but  that  it  was  the 
result  of  the  modification  of  another  watch  which 
kept  time  but  poorly,  and  that  this,  again,  had 
proceeded  from  a  structure  which  could  hardly  be 
called  a  watch  at  all,  seeing  that  it  had  no  figures 
on  the  dial  and  the  hands  were  nidimentary,  and 
that,  going  back  and  back  in  time,  we  come  at 
last  to  a  revolving  barrel  as  the  earliest  traceable 
rudiment  of  the  whole  fabric.  And  imagine  that 
it  had  been  possible  to  show  that  all  these  changes 
had  resulted  from  a  tendency  in  the  structure  to 
vary  indefinitely,  and,  secondly,  from  something 
in  the  surrounding  world  which  helped  all  van- 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,   loi 

ations  in  the  direction  of  an  accurate  time-keeper 
and  checked  all  tlioso  in  other  directions — then  it 
is  obvious  that  the  force  of  Paley's  argument 
would  be  gone." 

Does,  then,  the  doctrine  of  descent  and  Dar- 
winism give  the  death-blow  to  teleology  ?  This 
is  a  question  of  vital  importance  for  metaphysics 
and  ethics.  And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
the  essential  philosophical  significance  of  Dar- 
win's work  lies  in  its  extra-scientific  attempt  to 
explain  the  adaptations  in  plants  and  animals  as 
the  blind  outcome  of  purely  mechanical  causa- 
tion. Full  of  admiration  for  those  exquisite 
adaptations  of  one  part  of  the  organism  to  an- 
other part,  and  of  one  organic  being  to  another 
being,  as  well  as  of  all  organic  beings  to  the  phys- 
ical conditions  of  life,  Darwin,  after  studying 
them  with  marvellous  insight  and  patience,  pro- 
nounces them  all  results  of  *'  nature's  power  of 
selection,"  of  the  struggle  for  life  and  survival  of 
the  fittest,  among  the  innumerable  combinations 
that  have  happened  to  arise. 

Now,  before  inquiring  into  the  warrant  with 
which  fortuity  is  here  substituted  for  design,  two 
preliminary  remarks  suggest  themselves.  The 
first  is  that  the  doctrine  of  fortuitous  combina- 
tions is  not  the  outcome  of  modern  evolutionary 


\h  ■^^ 


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at  I 


P  M 


m  '■ 

f .     .  .■ 

V  ■  ■ 

; 


I02  Evolutionism  formerly  TeleologicaL 

science,  but  the  undeinonstrated  postulate  of 
every  merely  mechanical  philosophy.  It  is  as 
old,  therefore,  as  materialism ;  and  the  Greek 
atomists  expounded  it  as  skilfully  as  the  mod- 
ern English  biologists,  who,  in  fact,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  were  in  this  respect  clearly  antici- 
pated by  Empedocles.  Matter  first,  atoms  first, 
blind,  groping  mechanism  first :  that  is  the  alter- 
native which  the  history  of  speculation  has  al- 
ways offered  to  the  philosophy  that  holds  intelli- 
gence to  be  the  jprius  and  nature  but  a  means 
for  the  realization  of  divine  ideas.  If  Darwin- 
ian science  tends  to  assimilate  the  former,  it  is, 
I  hope  to  show,  equally  compatible  with  the  lat- 
ter. At  most  you  can  only  claim  that  it  stands 
Janus-faced  between  dvdy/crj  and  voC?,  indecisive 
whether  in  the  beginning  was  tvxv  or  in  the  be- 
ginning was  the  X0709. 

The  second  remark  is  that  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  previously  to  the  form  it  has  recently 
assumed  at  the  hands  of  the  empirical  philoso- 
phers of  England,  was  not,  as  Janet  has  observed, 
usually  opposed  to  the  teleological,  but  to  the  me- 
chanical, conception  of  the  world.  It  was  a  theory 
of  development  from  within,  and  in  direct  con- 
trast to  every  theory  of  agglomeration  from  with- 
out.   Leibnitz  is  the  father  of  modern  evolution- 


K 


A  ' 


TAe  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism.   103 

ism,  ilie  foundations  of  which  were  laid  in  his 
law  of  continuity,  his  theory  of  insensible  percep- 
tions, his  principle  of  the  infinitely  little,  and  his 
profound  insight  into  the  truth  that  "  the  present 
is  big  with  the  future."  And  yet  the  evolution- 
ism of  Leibnitz  implies  final  causes,  and  is  char- 
acterized by  its  antagonism  to  ihs  geometrical 
mechanism  of  Descartes  and  Spinoza.  Schelling 
and  Hegel  were  evolutionists,  but  as  remote  from 
the  mechanism  of  the  Fi-ench  school  of  their  day 
and  the  English  school  of  ours  as  they  were  near 
to  the  hylozoisi   of  the  ancient  Greek  cosmologists. 

Evolutionism,  then,  is  not  mechanism.  Nor,  as 
I  think  it  can  be  shown,  does  the  Darwinian  doc- 
trine of  descent  with  modifications  necessarily 
imply  fortuity.  Perhaps  nothing  in  the  "  Origin 
of  Species  "  has  lent  more  color  to  that  view  than 
the  account  given  of  the  formation  of  the  eye 
and  of  the  origin  of  the  peculiar  instinct  of  the 
cnckoo.  And  we  may  he  sure  that  if  not  here, 
then  nowhere  in  Darwin,  does  the  fortuitous 
really  play  the  role  of  a  veritable  artist,  a  deus 
absconditus,  a  creator  of  order  and  design. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  European  cuckoo  lays 
her  eggs  in  other  birds'  nests.  The  American 
cuckoo,  however,  makes  her  own  nest.  But  in 
rare  instances  she  has  been  known  to  follow  the 


&  IJ 


"M  ii 


rfsf  ; 


!;t! 


■  1. 


104  Instinct  of  the  Cuckoo, 

example  of  the  European  enckoo.  From  this 
fact  Darwin  undertakes  to  derive  the  origin  of 
the  nnique  instinct  of  the  latter  by  means  of  nat- 
ural selection.  "  Suppose,"  he  says,  "  that  the 
ancient  progenitor  of  our  European  cuckoo  had 
the  habit  of  the  American  cuckoo,  and  that  she 
occasionally  laid  an  Q^<g  in  another  bird's  nest. 
If  the  old  bird  profited  by  this  occasional  hab- 
it, through  being  enabled  to  migrate  earlier  or 
through  any  other  cause ;  or  if  the  young  were 
made  more  vigorous  by  advantage  being  taken  of 
the  mistaken  instinct  of  another  species  than 
when  reared  by  their  own  mother,  encumbered, 
as  she  could  hardly  fail  to  be,  by  having  eggs 
and  young  of  different  ages  at  the  same  time — 
then  the  old  birds  or  the  fostered  young  would 
gain  an  advantage.  And  analogy  would  lead  us 
to  believe  that  the  young  thus  reared  would  be 
apt  to  follow  by  inheritance  the  occasional  and 
aberrant  habit  of  their  mother,  and  in  their  turn 
would  be  apt  to  lay  their  eggs  in  other  birds* 
nests,  and  thus  be  more  successful  in  rearing  their 
young.  By  a  continued  process  of  this  nature  I 
believe  that  the  strangj  instinct  of  our  cuckoo 
has  been  generated." 

This  hypothesis  raises  many  interesting  ques- 
tions for  the  scientist,  but  we  are  only  concerned 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,   105 

with  the  fortuity  which  it  seems  to  imply.  "We 
need  not  question  that  modifications  of  instincts, 
as  of  organs,  may  be  advantageous  ;  or  that,  having 
occurred,  they  will  tend  to  perpetuate  themselves 
on  a  1  arena  where  the  race  is  to  the  swift  and  the 
battle  to  the  strong.  And  we  may  even  concede 
as  possible  Lamarck's  identification  of  instinct 
with  hereditary  habit,  and  Darwin's  derivation 
of  such  habit  fi*on;  the  repetition  of  serviceable 
actions  insured  through  natural  selection.  But 
on  two  points  more  light  is  indispensable.  In  the 
first  place,  do  such  variations  of  instinct  as  the 
hypothesis  supposes  actually  occur  ?  Experiment 
has  shown  that  the  habits  of  bees  may  be  changed ; 
but  has  it  shown  that  this  flexibility  is  inconsist- 
ent with  the  doctrine  of  fixed  instincts?  To 
regard  the  gradations  of  instinct  as  so  many 
stages  in  the  modification  of  it  is  to  take  for 
granted  the  very  question  at  issue.  Then,  in  tlie 
second  place,  if  the  variability  is  granted,  by  what 
right  is  it  made  fortuitous  ?  When  Darwin  tells 
us  that  instincts  have  been  acquired  from  habits 
and  actions  *'  which  at  first  appeared  from  what 
we  must  in  our  ignorance  call  an  accident,"  his 
language  is  unhappy  and,  indeed,  unwarranted, 
for  he  is  only  giving  expression  to  the  doctrine 
with  which  our  study  of  variations  has  made  us 


io6         Not  Fortuitous  in  Origin, 


familiar — the  doctrine  of  "  spontaneoas  variations 
of  instinct ;  that  is,  of  variations  produced  by  the 
same  unknown  causes  which  produce  sh'ght  devi- 
ations of  bodily  structure."  But  these  causes,  as 
he  has  ali'eady  told  us,  are  innate  to  the  organ- 
ism ;  they  are  grounded  in  the  very  constitution  of 
the  being  that  varies.  Were  they  not,  they  could 
not  be  inherited.  An  action  purely  accidental — 
ungrounded,  that  is,  iu  the  nature  of  the  being 
that  performs  it — would  not,  on  the  doctrine  of 
chances,  even  be  repeated  by  that  individual, 
much  less  transmitted  to  its  descendants.  What 
is  there  to  transmit  in  such  a  fortuitous  perform- 
ance ?  By  the  very  definition  of  it,  it  stands  un- 
related to  everything  else,  and  exhausts  itself  in 
the  doing.  If  the  strange  habit  of  the  Euroj^ean 
cuckoo  was  formed  in  the  way  indicated  by  Dar- 
win, it  is  only  because  a  predisposition  to  that 
mode  of  action  lay  dormant  in  the  constitution. 
"  When  species  vary,"  says  the  eminent  botanist 
Kaudin,  whom  Darwin  frequently  quotes,  "  they 
do  so  in  virtue  of  an  intrinsic  and  innate  prop- 
erty." Mere  chance  variations  could  never  get 
repeated  and  perpetuated.  And  this,  indeed,  is 
implied  in  a  sentence  with  which  Darwin  con- 
firms the  report  of  the  occasional  aberrant  habit 
of  the  American  cuckoo.    "  I  could  also,"  he  says, 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,   107 

"give  several  instances  of  various  birds  which 
have  been  known  occasionally  to  lay  their  eggs 
in  other  birds'  nests."  If  the  cuckoo's  deviation 
were  as  fortuitous  as  these,  if  it  had  no  predeter- 
mining and  abiding  ground  in  the  constitution  of 
the  cuckoo,  how  came  it  alone  to  develop  into  an 
instinct,  when  all  the  advantages  accruing  in  this 
case  were  presuni  bly  operative  in  the  others, 
too?  This  marriage  with  fortuity  really  ham- 
pers the  single-eyed  achievement  of  Darwin.  Di- 
vorcing his  science  therefrom,  he  elsewhere  ad- 
mirably describes  his  position  in  these  words: 
"  If  it  can  be  shown  that  instincts  do  vary  ever 
so  little,  then  I  can  see  no  difficulty  in  Natural 
Selection  preserving  and  continually  accumulat- 
ing variations  of  instinct  to  any  extent  that  was 
profitable.  It  is  thus,  as  I  believe,  that  all  the 
most  complex  and  wonderful  instincts  have  origi- 
nated." Here,  as  always,  everything  is  assumed 
with  the  variations.  And  their  character  can 
only  be  determined  by  direct  observation  and  by 
inference  from  what  they  effect ;  and  neither  of 
these  methods  justifies  us  in  calling  them  fortui- 
tous. 

When  wo  pass  from  instinct  to  organ,  we  are 
still  in  the  presence  of  analogous  facts.  The 
question  is,  How  was  the  eye,  with  all  its  inimi- 


% 


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m 


'■If 


I'ii 


!  Li    i     I 


1    ■; 


Sy 


1 08 


Evolution  of  the  Eye, 


table  contrivances  and  marvellous  adjustments, 
formed  ?     The  lowest  animals,  and  probably  onr 
remotest  ancestors,  had  tio  eyes,  or  any  other  sense 
than  touch.   We  can  imagine  that  the  first  stage  in 
the  development  was  a  slightly  heightened  sense 
of  feeling  at  some  spot  iu  the  organism.     If  it 
gave  the  animal  an  advantage  over  others,  either 
in  procuring  food  or  in  defending  himself,  or  in 
any  other  way,  it  would  enable  him  to  vanquish 
his  rivals  and  perpetuate  his  advantageous  modi- 
fications ;  and  ir  the  variability  in  that  direction 
continued,  animals  possessing  it  would  in  surviv- 
ing accumulate  it,  until,  after  the  lapse  of  mill- 
ions of  years,  the  sensitivity  might  have  solidi- 
fied into  something  like  the  pigment-cells  that 
constitute  the  lowest  organs  of  vision  now  in  ex- 
istence.    It  is  at  this  point  Darwin  takes  up  the 
problem.      The   apparatus   of   an  optic   nerve, 
coated  with  pigment  and  invested  by  transparent 
membrane,  is  only  one  step  onward ;  and  when 
we  reflect  on  the  wide,  diversified,  and  graduated 
range  of  ocular  structure  in  the  lower  animals, 
"the  difficulty,"  according  to  Darwin,   "ceases 
to  be  very  great  in  belie/ing  "  that  natural  selec- 
tion may  have  converted  this  simple  apparatus 
into  an  eye  as  perfect  as  man's  or  the  eagle's,  with 
all  its  wonderful  arrangements    for  admitting 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism.   109 

light,  changing  the  focus,  and  correcting  Bpheii- 
cal  and  chromatic  aberration.  If  the  eye  varies, 
what  are  all  these  different  gradations  but  so  many 
stages  in  the  history  of  its  variability — forms 
that  have  be^n  preserved  by  natural  selection  % 
"  The  diflSculty  of  belie v  mg  that  a  perfect  and 
complex  eye  could  be  formed  by  natural  selec- 
tion, though  insuperable  by  our  imagination, 
should  not  be  considered  as  subversive  of  the 
theory,"  nor  will  it  .0  be  considered  by  any  sci- 
entist who  feels  it  "  indispensable  that  the  reason 
should  conquer  the  imagination." 

But  if  reason  is  to  "  conquer  the  imagination," 
it  can  only  be  by  clearly  apprehending  the  facts 
which  imagination  distorts.  And  when  the  im- 
agery of  the  preceding  description  is  translated 
into  reality,  the  account  of  the  formation  of  the 
eye  looks  reasonable  enough,  though  of  course  it 
is  not  proof  against  an  irrational  interpretation. 
What  perplexes  us  at  first  is  the  creative  func- 
tion assigned  to  natural  selection.  The  eye  is 
^^ formed  by  natural  selection."  And  repeatedly 
in  the  same  chapter  natural  selection  is  said  to 
^''produce  structures."  Now,  we  have  not  hither- 
to thought  of  natural  selection  as  an  originative 
power,  and  we  are  not  prepared  to  admit  that  it 
could  have  formed  the  eye.     And,  indeed,  it  is 


I  lo       Not  Explained  by  Darwin, 


■ii  ., 


!H 


only  metaphorically  that  anything  of  the  kind 
can  be  attributed  to  it.  Natural  selection,  it 
must  be  reiterated,  is  only  a  phrase  for  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
But  the  survival  of  an  eye  at  any  stage  of  de- 
velopment is  a  very  diflFerent  thing  from  the  for- 
mation of  an  eye.  Natural  selection,  as  Darwin 
elsewhere  says,  **  can  do  nothing  until  favorable 
individual  differences  or  variations  occur."  As  it 
was  only  figuratively  that  we  found  it  designated 
an  "  accunnilative "  agency,  much  bolder  is  the 
figure  that  invests  it  M'ith  "  productive  "  powers. 
Literally,  it  means  nothing  but  the  survival  of  the 
fittest ;  and  reason  and  imagination  alike  concur 
that  the  "  fittest"  must  have  preceded  the  survival. 
Eyes,  therefore,  are  not  formed  by  the  survival 
of  some  of  them,  but  merely  culled  and  sifted. 
Natural  selection  does  not  issue  the  creative 
word.  Let  there  be  sight  I  Its  is  the  Immbler 
function  of  sitting  in  judgment  on  all  forms  that 
do  emerge,  dooming  some  to  death  and  promot- 
ing their  e.  "utioners  to  higher  life.  To  find 
out,  now,  if  there  is  any  trace  of  design  in  the 
matter,  you  must  turn  your  gaze  from  the  bench 
of  judgment  and  scrutinize  the  beings  that  await 
its  sentence.  And  doing  so,  must  you  not  assert 
that  the  same  ends  which   are  realized  in  the 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism.    1 1 1 

lilgliest  forms  of  organism  and  of  organ  were 
already  contemplated  and  prefigured  in  their 
lower  antecedents,  and  the  gap  between  the  two 
filled  np  by  progressive  modifications  that  strive 
restlessly  toward  their  predetermined  goal  ?  And 
in  Darwin's  acconnt  of  the  formation  of  the  eye, 
when  metaphor  has  been  translated  into  fact,  I 
can  find  warrant  for  nothing  more  than  this: 
That  the  eyes  of  animals  have  been  improved 
through  beneficial  modifications,  originating  we 
know  not  how  or  whence,  and  that,  in  the  strng- 
gle  for  life,  the  least  advantageous  eyes  have  been 
eliminated.  Natural  selection  explains  how  any 
particular  eye  came  to  be  perpetuated,  once  it  had 
arrived  upon  the  scene,  but  it  is  dumb  regarding 
^\Q  form,ation  of  that  or  any  other  eye. 

Although  Darwin's  account  of  the  evolution  of 
the  eye  contains  nothing  more  than  I  have  stated, 
there  was,  I  think,  in  Darwin's  mind  an  arriere- 
pensee  due  to  speculative  preconceptions.  In 
accordance  with  the  philosophy  of  fortuity,  he 
seemed  to  regard  the  variations  between  which 
natural  selection  had  to  decide  as  altogether  in- 
definite in  their  character,  running  out  in  eveiy 
direction,  and  as  little  adapted,  for  example,  to 
the  formation  of  an  eye  as  to  the  formation  of  a 
stone.    The  infinite  modifications  of  that  tingling 


I  >  1 


1 1 2         Variations  not  Indefinite, 

Bcnsitivity  at  BOino  spot  of  the  skin  of  our  sight- 
less ancestor  might  have  developed  into  any- 
thing else  than  an  eye ;  and  it  is  solely  owing  to 
tlie  fact  that  other  combinations,  iniiumerablo 
and  heterogeneous,  could  not  hit  upon  a  stable 
equilibrium  in  relation  to  the  environment  that 
an  eye  happened  to  be  set  up  at  all.  In  this 
view,  natural  selection  is  only  a  learned  name  for 
chance.  And  so  intei-preting  it,  Lange,  as  we  have 
seen,  ridicules  teleology,  and  the  design-argument 
of  Paley  is  declared  by  Huxley  forever  obsolete. 

But  we  now  know  there  is  no  scientific  warrant 
for  this  philosophy  of  chance.  No  organism 
varies  indefinitely.  "  A  whale,"  says  Professor 
Iluxlev,  "  does  not  tend  to  varv  in  the  direction 
of  producing  feathers,  nor  a  bird  in  the  direction 
of  producing  whalebone."  And,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  other  authorities  join  in  the  denial 
that  variations  are  every-sided  and  indifferent. 
Further,  the  same  scientists  assure  us  that  the 
"  importance  of  natural  selection  will  not  be  im- 
paired "  by  this  view  of  variations.  But  if  so, 
natural  selection  is  manifestly  not  wedded  to 
;hance,  and  not  incompatible  with  design.  Kay, 
it  seems  to  presuppose  design;  since  develop- 
ment takes  place  along  certain  predetermined 
lines  of  modification,  and  natural  selection  only 


j'l 


■;:i 


The  Metaphysics  of  Darwinism,   113 

weeds  out  tlie  inferior  competing  forms.  The 
skin-spot  that  develops  into  an  eye,  and  the  re- 
volving barrel  that  could  develop  into  Paley's 
watch,  both  presuppose  a  tendency  to  definite 
variations;  and  this  being  confirmed  by  the 
latest  evolutionary  science,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  everything  is  conceded  that  the  teleologist 
demands.  Natural  selection  as  little  implies  for- 
tuity as  it  excludes  reason.  Its  alliance  with 
an  irrational  and  mechanical  philosophy  is  due 
merely  to  a  historical  accident.  The  scientists 
who  first  ardently  embraced  the  doctrine,  and 
burned  with  missionary  zeal  in  promoting  it, 
happened  for  the  most  part  to  favor,  or  to  seem 
to  favor,  a  materialistic  metaphysics.  And  this, 
in  conjunction  with  the  undertone  of  kindred 
speculation  we  have  already  noticed  in  Darwin 
himself,  led  inevitably  to  a  coalescence  of  the  new 
science  with  the  old  philosophy.  The  union  was 
allowed  to  pass  unchallenged  by  the  first  assail- 
ants, who  were  more  bent  upon  disproving  natu- 
ral selection  than  keen  in  distinguishing  between 
scientific  hypotheses  and  metaphysical  specula- 
tions ;  and  it  is  still  all  but  universally  believed 
that  the  biology  of  Darwin  is  inseparable  from 
those  mechanical  and  materialistic  schemes  of  the 

universe  into  which  it  has  been  fitted  by  the  ingeni- 
8 


i     I 


114  Fortuity  not  Involved, 


\  -ii 


0118  labors  of  evolutionary  teachers  in  Enrope  and 
America.  That  there  is  no  necessary  connection, 
however,  between  the  two,  that  Darwinian  science 
is  independent  of  this  philosophy  of  mechanism 
and  fortuity,  has,  I  think,  been  convincingly  estab- 
lished in  the  course  of  the  present  examination. 

The  determination  of  the  general  philosophical 
significance  of  Darwinism  is  a  considerable  step 
towards  the  solution  of  our  ethical  problem,  for 
which,  indeed,  it  was  an  indispensable  precondi- 
tion. Kvery  system  of  ethics  is  affiliated  to  a 
metaphysics,  expressed  or  understood ;  and  every 
system  of  metaphysics  carries  with  it  a  definite 
ethics.  The  moral  philosophy  of  Kant  could  not 
be  gre^^'^'^  upon  the  mental  philosophy  of  Hume ; 
and  thb  •  First  Principles "  of  Spencer  would 
never  blossom  into  the  "  Sermons  on  Human 
Nature."  On  the  other  hand,  the  mechanical 
conception  of  the  world  has  always  engendered  a 
utilitarian  theory  of  morals.  But  if,  as  we  have 
shown.  Darwinian  biology  does  not  imply  the 
philosophy  of  Democritus,  it  cannot,  at  least 
through  that  channel,  conduct  to  the  ethics  of 
Epicurus.  Are  morals,  then,  in  any  way  affected 
by  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection  ? 

To  this  question  an  answer  is  attempted  in  the 
following  pages. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


DARWINISM    AND  THE   FOUNDATIONS   OF   MOIIAT.K. 


It  is  important  to  fix  accurately  in  mind  what 
tlie  subject  of  the  present  chapter  is.  With  Dar- 
win's own  ethical  views  and  specnlations  we  have 
now  nothing  to  do,  though  the  exposition  and  ex- 
amination of  them  (both  in  themselves  and  in  re- 
lation to  his  natural  science)  must  form  the  topic 
of  a  later  chapter.  Just  at  present,  however,  our 
inquiry  ia  of  a  more  general  character.  We  want 
to  know  whether,  the  Darwinian  doctrinejjf jeso? 
lution  beijig  assumed,  it  entails  any_partic:i]ar 
t\ieorj^ji!LjaiorB}B.  Or,  since  natnral  selection  is 
the  essence  of  the  Bcientific  adiievement  of  Dar- 
win, we^  liaye  simply  to  ask.  Does  natural  selec- 
tion  invnlvgjjT^  indifiate  p,  definite  type  of  et.hicay 
60  that  acceptance^qf.Jhe_oua_lQgicalIy-nficessl- 
tates  acceptance  ofjthe_otlier  ?  This  question,  it 
is' OBVIOUS,  is  not  identical  with  an  inquiry  into 
Darwin's  own  moral  pystem,  which,  though  de- 
pendent upon  some  philosophical  principle,  may 


r 

!i . 

if 
5  ii 

.  r  ! 


i  I 


1 16      Natural  Selection  in  Morals, 

be  absolutely  disconnected  with  the  hypotheses  of 
biology.  Leaving  Darwin  the  moralist,  therefore, 
wholly  aside,  we  would  fain  settle  whether  Parr 
win  the  naturalist,  in  establishing  the  function 
of  natural  selection,  thereby  pred[etermined  ethics 
to  a  particular  form  or  invested  its  phenomena 
witlta^newcast.  of  Iboi^  And  this  point  can 
be  resolved  only  by  ignoring  the  uncritical  assump- 
tions of  the  school  and  undertaking  afresh  an  in- 
dependent consideration  of  the  facts  and  analysis 
of  the  notions  which  the  Darwinian  theory  in- 
volves. 

That  theory,  as  already  expounded,  consists 
essentially  of  two  moments — the  struggle  for  life 
and  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  The  former  con- 
nects it  historically  and  logically  with  Malthusi- 
anism,  and  may  be  considered  as  an  applica- 
tion of  the  famous  doctrine  of  population  to  the 
whole  organic  world.  That  is  to  say,  the  strug- 
gle for  life  follows  inevitably  froii  the  enor- 
mous increase  of  living  beings  beyond  the  means 
of  subsistence,  as  first  pointed  out  in  the  case  of 
man  by  Malthus.  This  debt  to  the  national  po- 
litical economy  Darwin  has  openly  ackn;;wledged. 
But  it  has  not  been  observed  that  the  other  mo- 
ment of  his  theory — the  issue  of  the  struggle — 
waB  conditioned  by  a  conception  borrowed  from 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


it; 


the  national  ethics.  He  remembered  distinctly, 
as  he  wrote  Haeckel,  how  on  reading  Malthus's 
"Essay  on  Population"  the  thought  of  a  uni- 
versal struggle  for  existence  first  flashed  upon  his 
mind.  But  he  could  not  remember,  so  early,  so 
gradual,  so  subtly  pervasive  is  the  entrance  of 
ethical  ideas,  when  he  had  become  inoculated  with 
the  national  utilitarianism.  Yet  it  can  scarcely 
be  doubted  that  it  was  from  this  source  he  ex- 
tracted the  iiQtion  of  utility  as  determinator  of 
.^he  issue  of  the  combat  for  existence.  No  one 
uninfluenced  by  the  ethics  of  the  school  of  Hume 
and  Bentham  would  have  ventured  to  interpret 
the  evolution  of  life  as  a  continuous  realization  of 
utilities.  And  yet  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  by 
which,  according  to  Darwin,  development  is  ef- 
fected, just  meang_jthe  preservation  of  the  most 
t^a^tf^jaodiJications  of  structure  or  habit.  "  Any 
being,  if  it  vary,  however  slightly,  in  any  man- 
TiQY prqfitahle  to  iUelf^"*  says  Darwin,  "will  have 
a  better  chance  of  surviving,  and  thus  be  natu- 
rally selected."  Or,  in  other  words,  before  the 
operation  of  natural  selection  there  must  be  a 
utility  of  some  kind  on  which  it  acts.  What  is 
useful  is  preserved,  what  is  harmful  is  destroyed. 
"Nature  cares  nothing  for  appearances,  except 
in  so  far  as  they  may  be  useful  to  any  being." 


V 

lit 


w 


1 18  The  Moment  of  Utility. 

Thus,  as  you  dig  down  to  the  roots  of  existence, 
you  find  it  draws  its  vital  sap  from  utility. 
"  Natural  selection  acts  solely  by  and  for  the  good 
of  each."  It  may  "  produce  structures  "  for  the 
direct  injury  of  other  species,  but  never  for 
their  exclusive  advantage,  ^ith  certain  excep- 
tions that  can  ^2  explained,  the  structure  of 
every  living  creature  as  well  as  every  detail  of  that 
structure  "  either  now  is,  or  was  formerly,  of  some 
direct  or  indirect  use  to  its  possessor."  Similarly, 
the  instinct  of  each  species  is  useful  for  that 
species,  and  has  never  been  produced  for  the  ex- 
clusive benefit  of  another  species.  Could  these 
propositions  be  refuted,  "  it  would,"  says  Darwin, 
"annihilate  my  theory,"  for  structures  and  in- 
stincts could  not  in  that  case  be  the  product  of 
natural  selection.  The_jiurvivy_jif__±he_fittfi8t 
implies  an_antecedent  utility— a  modification  jid- 
vantageous  to  the  individual  or,  it  may  be,  to  the 
community  of  which  it  is  a  member,  but  never 
directly  and  exclusively  to  others  _^jM)nd__tliifl 
^ale.  Natural  selection  i«8ts_iipon_a-biological 
iiHlihariftnifimj  whi<nh|_  priftyjhe^goifitin  or  Ci)jamii- 
nistic,  but  which  cannot  ]je.aQi£eraalistio. 

Let  us  now  apply  this  doctrine  to  man,  with  the 
object  of  discovering  its  bearing  upon  morals. 
We  have,  then,  to  admit  that  the  human  species 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


119 


has  originated  and  developed  to  its  present  stage 
through  the  preservation  and  accumulation  of  a 
number  of  useful  modifications  which,  whether 
of  individual  or  social  benefit,  gave  our  semi- 
human,  semi-brutal  ancestors  an  advantage  over 
other  animals  in  the  struggle  for  life.  Of  these 
modifications,  one  of  the  most  obvious  is  an  erect 
attitude.  This  peculiarity,  which  the  oiang,  the 
gorilla,  and  the  gibbon  seem  now  on  the  way  to 
acquiring,  has  manifest  advantages.  It  enabled 
simian  man,  not  only  to  hurl  missiles  at  his 
enemies  without  forfeiting  the  power  of  simul- 
taneous locomotion,  but  also  to  break  and  dress 
stones  for  definite  purposes,  thus  beginning  the 
career  of  that  tool-using  animal  whose  skill  and 
ingenuity  have  changed  the  face  of  his  physical 
environment. 

But  this  career,  even  in  its  commencement, 
would  have  been  impossible  without  the  emer- 
gence of  a  still  more  important  factor  in  the  de- 
velopment. Mind  is  infinitely  more  useful  than 
mere  bodily  structure ;  and  it  is  not  necessary  to 
deny  intelligence  to  the  lower  animals  when  we 
assert  that  the  human  mind  is  the  most  colossal 
and  revolutionary  of  all  the  modifications  any 
species  has  undergone.  Such  an  enormous  ad- 
vantage would  be  preserved  and  perpetuated  by 


I20 


The  Utility  of  Mind, 


J  K 


'.  m    I 


natural  selection.     For  it  enables  man  to  do  at 
once  what  nature  takes  ages  to  accomplish  for  the 
other  animals ;  it  enables  him  to  adapt  himself 
to  his   environment  withont   change  in   bodily 
strnctnre  and  organization.     Imagine  a  group  of 
carnivorous  animals  suddenly  exposed  to  a  severer 
climate  and  obliged  to  capture  more  powerful 
prey  ;  only  those  with  the  warmest  natural  cloth- 
ing and  strongest  claws  and  teeth  could  manage 
to  survive  ;  and  as  the  battle  with  their  evil  star 
grew  fiercer,  the  group,  if  not  altogether  exter- 
minated, must  languish  thi*ough  the  long  course 
of  aeons  until  their  modifying  organs  and  struct- 
ures had  become  completely  adapted  to  the  new 
requirements  through  the  play  of  natural  selec- 
tion.    But  the  mental  powers  of  man  render  him, 
in  similar  circumstances,  independent  of  nature. 
He   makes    thicker    clothing,  and   he  fashions 
sharper  weapons  or  constructs  more  cunning  pit- 
falls.    Simple  as  these  performances  seem,  how 
infinitely  advantageous  they  must  have  been  in 
the  struggle  for  life.     When   the  intelligence 
which  made  them  possible  first  appeared  upon 
the  scene,  it  effected  "  a  i-evolution  which  [to 
quote  the  language  of  Mr.  Alfred  Russell  Wal- 
lace] in  all  the  previous  ages  of  the  earth's  history 
bad  no  parallel,  for  a  being  had  arisen  who  was 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


121 


no  longer  necessarily  subject  to  change  with  the 
changing  universe." 

Simultaneous  with  this  revolution  was  another, 
scarcely  less  significant,  clue  to  the  appearance 
and  operation  of  the  moral  sentiments.  The 
moral  being  lives  for  others  as  well  as  for  him- 
self. But  the  lower  animals  are  at  best  grega- 
lious,  not  social ;  they  lead  a  life  of  individual 
isolation  and  self-dependence.  Each  is  alone,  in 
the  battle  for  life,  exposed  to  the  whole  force  of 
the  combat.  The  sick  and  the  feeble  fall  victims 
to  beasts  of  prey  or  die  of  starvation.  There  is 
no  division  of  labor  to  relieve  the  one  from  di- 
rectly procuring  its  own  food,  no  mutual  assist- 
ance to  succor  the  other  till  health  and  vigor  are 
restored.  Accordingly,  any  group  of  animals  en- 
dowed with  the  least  tincture  of  sociality  and 
sympathy  would,  through  the  internal  union  and 
strength  which  these  qualitic  j  evoke,  have  a  de- 
cided advantage  over  other  groups  not  thus  en- 
dowed. A  tribe  animated  by  these  instincts  con- 
tains in  itself  a  principle  of  survival  of  scarcely 
less  efficacy  than  the  mental  faculties  themselves. 
If  these  check  the  action  of  natural  selection  on 
the  body,  and  transfer  it  to  the  sphere  of  intelli- 
gence, the  social  and  sympathetic  feelings  screen 
the  individual  and  oppose  to  the  play  of  natural 


ii 


i 


ii 


^1 

iw 

If 


fli 


i 


I. 


m 

i 
II' 

'     i 
I 

,     1 


122 


Z14^  Utility  of  Virtue, 


selection  the  solid  framework  of  a  united  and 
strengthened  societ}^  But  sympathy  and  social- 
ity imply  fidelity,  trustworthiness,  truthfulness, 
obedience,  and  the  like.  And  as  these  are  useful 
in  the  struggle  for  life — being,  in  fact,  means  of 
social  survival — not  less  useful  are  the  other  virt- 
ues which  form  the  complex  tissue  of  our  moral- 
ity. Hence  it  followB  that  the  moral  ppntinrhprrtfij 
as  motors  tending  to  the  presei'vation  of  thfi  tril^a, 
must,  like  the  mental  faculties,  be  self-preserving 
.  flnd_&g[f-accumi j^ating  jinder  the  utilitarian  sway, 
of  natural  seleiJlion, 

This  view  of  the  development  of  th^  Rimiftn 
quadruped  into  the^moral  peraoTi  hy  nifia^fi^nf 
natural  selection  fitj^pms  to  rnnfirm  thn  £;nnorft1 
impression  that  utilitarian  ethics  is  the  necessary, 
implicate  of_^a_rwijy  We  began  by 

remarking  that  the  biological  theory  borrowed 
the  notion  of  utility  from  empirical  morals ;  but 
we  must  now  confess  the  loan  has  been  so  success- 
fully invested  that  there  is  some  ground  for  be- 
lieving the  proceeds  suffice,  not  only  to  wipe  out 
the  obligation,  but  even  to  make  ethics  debtor 
to  biology.  In  demonstrating  the  evolution  of 
plants  and  animals,  organs  and  functions,  in- 
stincts and  intelligence  and  conscience,  through 
the  preservation  and  accumulation  of  modifica- 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


123 


tions  useful  for  survival  in  the  struggle  for  life, 
biology  has  led  up  to  an  ethical  theory  which 
places  the  governing  principle  of  human  conduct 
in  utility ;  since,  on  its  showing,  utility  has  gen- 
erated that  conduct  as  well  as  the  life  and  the 
species  in  which  it  is  manifested.  In  the  war  of 
nature,  nothing  seems  inviolate  except  what  is 
useful.  The  stone  which  the  intuitional  moral- 
ists despised  has  become  the  head  of  the  corner. 
In  the  evolutiono-utilitarian  theory  of  morals, 
the  process  which  nature  has  blindly  followed  in 
the  developmentj^i  life  comjgsjtojt^consciousn^^ 
._xi£-itself ,  and  is  recognized  as  the  nonn  ofjiiiiiian. 
conduct.  "  The  ideal  goal  to  the  natural  evolution 
of  conduct  is,"  according  to  Mr.  Spencer,  "  the 
ideal  standard  of  conduct  ethically  considered." 
Moral  life  is  held  to  ^nsist  J^njjaunonious 
adaptation  to  that^cial  tissue  whgte  _pivoductiQn 
throu^i  natural  selection  was  a^pijme  condi- 
tion of  the  origin  ^  a  species  of  moral_  beings. 
MoraL-jtilos  arc  rogayded-  as  the  expiebbiun  of 
thosejogiaj  adaptations  which^QiL.thfi- whDle,-and 
after  infinite  groping§^^*osed  most  ser viceable  la- 
the j)reservation^f£roups_i)f_lmmaft^«fti«iak-ia 
the  struggle  for  existence.  They  are  the  picked- 
up  clothei"whircirwarmed  and  protected  a  naked 
social  body  and  enabled  it  to  vanquish  all  its 


ii 


'I 

i. 


^4  ' 


*  * 
I 


:P  I 


124 


Biological  Ethics, 


rivals.  Little  wonder  if,  after  the  conflict,  they 
have  become  a  f^ticn  to  the  victors — to  all  but 
the  few  who  have  tracked  their  fossil  history  I 

Thus,  then,  this  philosophy  of  human  conduct 
has  been  merged  in  the  wider  philosop^^y  of  life. 
But  the  new  utilitarianism  wears  an  aspect  some- 
what unlike  the  old.  They  hold,  indeed,  the  same 
fundamental  position  in  regard  to  opposing  the- 
ories ;  but  as  between  themselves  there  is  an 
obvious  contrast.  For,  though  the  note  of  util- 
ity is  as  clear  in  the  "  Origin  of  Species  "  as  in 
the  "  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,"  there 
it  means  power-giving,  here  pleasure-giving ;  so 
that,  far  from  running  into  each  other,  Darwinism 
and  Benthamism  might  take  their  places  respec- 
tively under  those  opposing  categories  of  activity 
and  pleasure  into  which  Schleiermacher  resolved 
every  difference  of  ethical  systems. 

Of  comse,  if  it  could  be  shown  that  what 
brings  pleasure  is  identical  with  wliat  gives  power 
to  survive — what  is  serviceable  in  the  struggle 
for  life — the  case  would  be  changed,  and  the  last 
residuum  of  the  old  utilitarianism  would  have 
been  assimilated  by  the  new.  But  for  this  iden- 
tification Darwinian  biology  supplies  no  material. 
And  though  it  has  been  speculatively  attempted 
in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  elaboration  of  Pro- 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


125 


fessor  Bain^s  suggestion  that  pleasure  is  accom- 
panied by  an  increase  of  some  or  all  of  the  vital 
functions,  his  arguments  are  not  so  much  deduc- 
tions from  evolutionary  science  as  postulates  of 
a  foregone  psychological  and  ethical  hedonijm. 
Even,  however,  where  hedonism  is  theoretically 
hold  to,  it  is  no  longer  the  real  vital  moment  of 
evolutiono-utilitarianism.  Instead  of  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  you  have  an- 
other standard ;  and  morality,  as  with  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen,  is  defined  as  "  the  means  of  social  vital- 
ity," "  the  conditions  of  social  welfare,"  "  the  sum 
of  the  preservative  instincts  of  a  society."  In 
the  last  phase  of  its  development,  as  in  the  ear- 
liei',  utilitarianism  retains  the  conception  of  mo- 
rality as  something  relative,  a  means  to  an  end 
beyond  itself,  and  as  a  product  of  physical  or 
psychological  compulsion  rather  than  the  self- 
imposed  law  of  a  free  moral  agent.  It  has  for- 
feited none  of  the  essential  attributes  of  a  system 
of  utility.  But,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  its 
leading  advocates,  it  is  casting  the  slough  of 
pleasure,  which  ceemed  a  vital  part  of  its  earlier 
life.  It  still  holds  that  the  moral  is  identical 
witli  the  useful,  though  when  you  ask,  "  Useful 
for  what  ?  "  the  answer  is  no  longer  "  For  pleas- 
ure,"  but   "For  preservation" — i.e.,  for  social 


!      I 


126 


*    II 


n^n 


it 


!;, 


HI 


ti 


'^1  i 


Utility  and  Pleasure, 


vitality,  for  the  well-being  of  the  commnnity.  Of 
those  pleasures  and  pains  in  which  Mill  found 
the  solo  motive  of  conduct,  as  well  as  the  crite- 
rion and  the  sanction  of  morality,  Darwin  knows 
nothing ;  but,  these  apart,  the  essence  of  utilita- 
rianism and  the  essence  of  Darwinism,  the  prin- 
ciple of  utility  and  the  principle  of  natural  se- 
lection, have  inch  strong  elective  affinities  that 
to  effect  their  combination  nothing  was  required 
but  to  bring  them  together.  Their  union  estab- 
lishes the  high- water  mark  of  contemporary  util- 
itarianism. 

The  transformation  has  given  scientific  com- 
pleteness to  utilitarianism.  In  the  hands  of  Ben- 
tham,  even,  the  phenomena  of  morals  were  held 
apart  from  all  other  phenomena,  but  through  the 
common  notion  of  natural  selection  they  have 
been  colligated  with  the  facts  of  biology ;  and 
from  the  enlarged  horizon  a  gain  is  expected  sim- 
ilar to  tliat  which  came  to  the  sciences  of  heat, 
light,  and  electricity  when  they  were  recognized 
as  merely  different  applications  of  the  one  gen- 
eral theory  of  motion.  And  already,  it  is  n)ain- 
tained,  obscurities  of  the  system  on  its  lower 
plane  are  dissipated  in  the  light  of  its  higher  alti- 
tude. Kor  is  this  effected  by  the  incorporation 
of  elements  foreign  to  the  primitive  doctrine,  such 


f 


U 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


127 


as  may  be  seen,  for  example,  in  that  peculiarly 
noble  and  attractive  exposition  which  the  pre- 
evolutionary  utilitarianism  received  from  its  last 
great  exponent.  In  John  Stuart  Mill's  presenta- 
tion of  it  the  ethics  of  utility  transcends  itself, 
and  the  hedonism  of  Bentham  has  to  be  supple* 
men  ted  by  the  moral  law  or  categorical  impera- 
tive of  Rant,  which  appears  under  the  form  of  a 
"  sense  of  dignity,"  a  reverence  for  the  humanity 
in  one's  person,  an  abiding  consciousness  of  an 
ideal  and  attainable  worth  which  forbids  dallying 
with  lower  ends  however  strong  the  attraction  of 
their  pleasures.  But  it  is  not  by  such  an  amalga- 
mation of  opposing  conceptions  that  the  evolu- 
tiono-utilitarian  commends  his  theory.  He  holds 
that  utility  alone,  under  the  action  of  natural  se- 
lection, takes  on  the  appearance  of  morality,  and 
he  pledges  himself  to  derive  from  this  lowly 
source  all  those  lofty  attributes  with  which  men 
have  invested  the  moral  law  and  glorified  it  as 
the  oracle  of  God.  Thus  evolutionary  ethics 
claims  the  field,  not  merely  as  a  deduction  from 
biology,  but  as  a  complete  scientific  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  of  morals.  This  aspect  of  it 
we  have  now  to  consider. 

The  moral  law  is  popularly  regarded  as  simple, 
unanalyzable,  or  ultimate.    When  it  is  said  that 


'  1 1 


'J 


.ii 


H  I 


128  Explains  Moral  Law, 

justice  is  right,  tliat  benevoleuce  is  a  duty,  that 
stealing  or  lying  is  wrong,  we  do  not  attempt  to 
demonstrate  these  propositions  by  means  of  ot'  ers, 
but  directly  and  immediately  assent  to  them  as 
carrying  their  own  self-evidence.  It  is  instinc- 
tively felt  that  no  reason  can  be  given  for  them, 
any  more  than  for  the  axioms  of  geometry.  And 
the  unsophisticated  sense  of  the  plain  man  is 
shocked  by  the  suggestion  that  moral  precepts 
stand  or  fall  with  their  conduciveness  to  pleasure, 
and  still  more  by  the  suggestion  that  virtue, 
which  he  takes  to  be  the  end  of  life,  "  is  natu- 
rally and  originally  no  part  of  the  end,"  but  merely 
a  means  to  something  else — to  pleasure  as  final 
goal.  And  it  was  very  diffic  '♦•  for  Mill  and  his 
predecessors  to  explain  how  j  theory  men  had 
been  duped  into  accepting  ethical  precepts  solely 
on  their  own  credentials,  and  how  in  practice  they 
had  been  hoodwinked  into  realizing  them  disin- 
terestedly, for  their  own  sake,  and  without  the 
slightest  reference  to  ulterior  consequences.  But 
the  example  of  the  miser  did  valiant  service  in 
their  psychology ;  and  it  was  argued  that,  if  mon- 
ey, originally  only  a  means  to  what  it  purchases, 
could  through  association  of  ideas  come  to  be  de- 
sired for  itself,  and  that,  too,  with  the  utmost  inten- 
sity, virtue  might  undergo  a  similar  transforma- 


if   If 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


129 


tion,  and  through  conduciveness  to  an  end  event- 

uiiUy  become  identified  with  the  end.     Nor  is  the 

musty  example   of   the   miser  yet   obsolete,  as 

readers  of  Mr.  Spencer  will  remember.    It  is, 

however,  reinforced  with  new  arguments  in  the 

ethics  of  the  evolutionists.     They  do  not  require 

the  plain  man  to  believe  that  the  tissue  of  his 

ethical  sentiments   has  been  woven  in  his  own 

lifetime.     They  show  him   how  the  warp  and 

woof  were  spun  in  the  brains  of  animals  scarcely 

ye^  emerged    as  men,  and    then,  following  the 

movements  of  the  shuttle  in  the  roaring  loom  of 

time,  they  delineate  the  formation  of  a  moral 

texture  in  our  race — a  texture  inherited  by  every 

individual  when  once  it  has  been  acquired  by  the 

species.  And  how  precisely  is  it  acquired  ?    ^"^  the 

lielp  of  natural  selection.      The   early  societies 

that  did  not  happen  to  hit  upon  the  practice  of 

justice,  benevolence,  etc.,  could  not  possibly  hold 

together  against  groups  observing  these  relations  ; 

and  then  the  constant  danger  of  extermination 

impressed  the  survivors  with  the  indispensable- 

ness  of   the  fundamental  virtues,  which  flamed 

ever  before  them,  as  it  were,  in  characters  of  blood. 

What  we  are  familiar  with  seems  simple,  what 

we  have  always  done  we  do  again  ;  and  who  can 

wonder,  therefore,  that  our  primitive  ancestors, 
9 


130       InnaUnesSf  Simplicity^  Etc, 


I  SI  3 


wn 


'    i ) 


'■i\  ?! 


slaves  of  imitation  and  of  habit,  should  have 
deemed  moral  precepts  self-evident  and  the  prac- 
tice of  them  an  end  in  itself  ? 

Equally  with  the  simplicity  and  ultimateness 
of  our  moral  conceptions,  the  evolutionist  ex- 
plains their  innateness.  Agreeing  with  the  in- 
tuitionist  that  these  notions  are  part  of  the  orig- 
inal furniture  of  every  mind  that  comes  into  the 
world,  the  evolutiono-utilitarian  holds  them  to  be 
ultimately  derived  from  experience  ;  and  if  he  be 
a  hedonist,  like  Mr.  Spencer,  he  will  add,  from 
experience  of  pleasurable  or  painful  consequences, 
though  this  experience  is  by  him  relegated  to 
the  past  history  of  mankind.  '*  Moral  intui- 
tions are  the  results  of  accumulated  experiences  of 
utility."  Just  as  the  emotion  you  feel  in  visiting 
the  home  of  your  youth  seems  unique  and  inexplic- 
able, yet  is  manifestly  due  to  a  vague  recollection 
of  joys  formerly  associated  with  the  objects  that 
surround  you,  so,  it  has  been  ingeniously  suggested 
by  M.  Fouiilee,  the  sentiments  which  accompany 
the  performance  of  virtuous  acts  are  the  perfume 
of  an  earthy  soil — a  kind  of  recollection  or  in- 
distinct echo,  not  only  of  our  own  pleasures,  but 
of  the  joys  of  the  entire  race.  And  it  is  this  rever- 
beration over  the  ages  of  a  utility  for  the  race  that 
we  take  for  an  innate  tendency  to  disinterestedness. 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


131 


A  similar  account  is  given  of  the  immutability 
and  universality  of  moral  conceptions.  Morality 
being  the  indispensable  condition  of  social  exist- 
ence, it  is  coextensive  with  humanity.  The 
primal  virtues  shine  in  every  tribe  and  nation, 
for  without  them  no  section  of  the  human  family 
could  have  found  its  way  through  the  struggle  for 
existence.  And  as  amid  many  smaller  variations 
the  general  conditions  of  social  life  are  every- 
where the  same,  moral  laws  could  not  fail  to  be, 
if  not  eternal  and  immutable  in  the  absolute 
sense  of  Cudworth,  j'et  as  unchanging  and  endur- 
ing as  the  human  species  and  the  imiverse  it  in- 
habits. The  fundamental  agreement  in  men's 
moral  notions  is  thus  explained  without  any  as- 
sumption of  supranatural  revelation  or  d>  priori 
intuition. 

Moral  obligation  presents  a  greater  difficulty  ; 
and  evolutionary  moralists  of  the  school  we  are 
now  considering  have  had  to  fall  back  upon  the 
answer  of  the  ordinary  utilitarians.  They  ascribe 
the  sense  of  obligation  to  the  effects  of  the  legal 
and  social  sanctions  with  which  certain  kinds  of 
conduct  are  visited.  Moral  motives  being  at  first 
inseparable  from  political  and  social  motives,  they 
have  been  permeated  with  that  con8CH)usne8s  of 
subordination  to  authority  which  naturally  arises 


\  •• 


»    1^ 


i  ji 


132  Account  of  Obligation* 

out  of  the  relation  of  subject  to  ruler  and  of  in- 
dividual to  tribe.  The  coerciveness  which  now 
forms  so  important  a  constituent  in  our  conscious- 
ness of  duty  is  a  survival  of  the  constraint  with 
which  primitive  man  was  forced  by  external 
agencies  into  certain  lines  of  conduct  and  deterred 
from  others.  And  hence  it  follows  that,  as 
morality  is  differentiated  more  completely  from 
the  legal,  political,  and  social  institutions  in  which 
it  originated,  the  feeling  of  obligation  generated 
by  them  will  gradually  fade  away.  Thus  the 
evolutiono-utilitarian  account  of  obligation  dis- 
covers it  a  transitional  feature  in  the  process  of 
human  ^^  moralization,"  and  this  essentially  is  all 
that  it  adds  to  the  theory  of  Mill  and  Bain. 

This  newest  theory  of  morals,  here  too  briefly 
outlined,  embraces  in  its  range  the  entire  province 
of  moral  conceptions  and  sentiments.  But  from 
what  has  been  said  the  general  character  of  the 
system  will  be  readily  discerned.  It  is  simple, 
intelligible,  and  even  plausible.  That  it  should 
have  proved  fascinating  to  all,  and  irresistible  to 
many,  of  the  generation  that  lias  so  long  listened 
to  it  with  an  ardor  brooking  little  distraction  from 
other  theories,  cannot  be  a  matter  of  surprise  to 
anyone  who  has  duly  considered  the  facts  with 
which   the  theory  is  associated.     Borrowed,   as 


\\  ^ 


I  , 


Darwinism  in  Ethics* 


-i^lZ 


they  are,  either  from  observation  or  from  well- 
established  sciences,  and  fitted  ingeniously  into 
current  evolutionary  ethics,  they  seem  to  be  an 
organic  part  of  the  structure ;  and  the  question  of 
otherwise  explaining  them  is  not  likely  to  be 
raised.  Conversely,  the  full  implication  of  the 
principles  upon  which  they  are  here  grafted  has 
been  left  unexplored.  And  thus,  while  the  new 
ethical  philosophy  has  been  widely  accepted,  a 
determination  of  the  bases  on  which  it  really 
rests  still  remains  to  be  made.  This  want  we 
must  now  attempt  to  supply. 

In  the  first  place^  then,  evolutionitry  ethics,  as 
hitherto  presented,  takes  for  granted  the  deriv- 
ative character  of  morality.  I  say  "  as  hitherto 
presented,"  because  I  hope  to  show  in  the  sequel 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  notion  of  develop- 
ment when  applied  to  morals  which  necessitates, 
or  which  even  warrants,  the  assumption.  But  our 
exponents  of  evolutionism  happen  to  have  been 
trained  in  the  school  of  Epicurus,  Hume,  and 
Bentham,  and  it  is  not,  on  the  whole,  very  sur- 
prising they  should  have  carried  the  old  leaven 
into  the  new  teaching.  What  is  surprising  is  the 
assumption,  so  coolly  made,  that  the  theory  of 
evolution  in  some  way  vouches  for  the  utilitarian- 
ism om*  moralists  associate  with  it.     As  though  a 


w 


134 


First  Assumption, 


« 


follower  of  Plato  or  Kant,  for  example,  could  not 
be  a  Darwinist  in  science !  Is  it  forgotten  that, 
even  if  goodness  be  an  end  in  itself — the  sole  end 
worth  living  for — it  still  remains  true  that  hon- 
esty is  the  best  policy,  that  honest  acts  are  the 
most  advantageous  acts,  and  that  they  will  ac- 
cordingly be  preserved  through  natural  selection 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  ?  All  that  natural 
selection  requires  is  that  something  shall  be  use- 
ful ;  what  else  it  inmj  he,  what  other  predicates  it 
may  have,  wherein  its  essence  consists,  natural 
selection  knows  not  and  recks  not.  Be  virtue  a 
proximate  end  or  an  ultimate  end,  natural  selec- 
tion tells  us  it  will  be  preserved  and  perpetuated 
if  it  is  useful ;  and  it  tells  us  no  more.  It  is, 
accordingly,  a  gratuitous  assumption  which  our 
exponents  of  evolutionary  ethics  make,  when 
they  decline  to  allow  more  than  a  merely  relative 
value  to  morality.  And  as  their  position  derives 
no  support  from  evolutionary  science,  so  is  it 
exposed  to  all  the  objections  which  moralists, 
voicing  the  universal  consciousness  of  mankind, 
have  brought  against  it,  from  the  time  when 
Aristotle  asserted  that  virtue  has  no  extrinsic 
end  (toO  koKov  iveKa)  to  the  time  when  Kant  pro- 
claimed the  absolute  worth  of  a  good-will. 

In  the  second  place,  the  current  expositors  of 


I 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


135 


evolutionary  ethics  having  made  the  radical  as- 
sumption that  moral  laws  are  not  categorical  im- 
peratives which  command  unconditionally,  but 
hypothetical  imperatives  which  prescribe  means 
to  the  attainment  of  some  end,  they  cannot  escape 
the  problem  of  determining  wherein  consists  that 
ultimate  end,  conduciveness  to  which  alone  gives 
morality  its  worth  and  obligation.  Nor,  in  gen- 
eral, has  the  school  been  dismayed  by  the  mag- 
nitude or  the  obscurity  of  this  problem.  Possibly 
it  has  not  fully  realized  that  the  question  is  noth- 
ing less  than  an  inquiry  into  the  highest  good 
for  man  or  the  supreme  end  of  human  endeavor. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  one  cannot  but  be  interested 
to  find  that,  in  spite  of  the  distrust  of  reason 
generated  by  modern  theories  of  knowledge,  our 
evolutionary  thinkers  dare  to  face  the  problem 
which,  in  undisturbed  consciousness  of  reason's 
might,  ancient  philosophers  put  in  the  foreground 
of  their  ethics.  Even  in  an  age  of  agnosticism 
thoughtful  men  come  round  to  the  sphinx-riddle, 
What  am  I  here  for  ?  what  is  the  end  of  life  ? 
The  question  may  not,  it  is  true,  take  precisely 
this  form  in  the  mouth  of  a  modern  evolutionary 
moralist,  but  that,  after  all,  is  substantially  what 
he  is  bent  on  discovering  and  what  he  must  dis- 
cover— must^  if  his  thesis  is  to  be  made  good  that 


.-^A 


\  \ 


136 


Second  Assumption, 


\    i! 


morality  is  only  a  means  to  something  else.  And 
there  is  no  logical  reason  why  he  should  not 
appropriate  the  Aristotelian  solution  that  man'8 
highest  good  consists  in  the  most  perfect  rational 
activity,  that  his  supreme  end  or  function  is  to 
inform  life  with  reason  and  make  his  entire  being 
the  embodiment  of  reason.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  most  typical  evolutionary  moralists  have 
selected  a  very  different  ethical  end — pleasure. 
They  have  maintained  with  Mr.  Spencer  that 
*'the  good  is  universally  the  pleasurable,"  and 
that  conduct  is  made  good  or  bad  solely  by  its 
"  pleasure-giving  and  pain-giving  effects." 

Still  the  evolutionary  moralist,  even  of  the  de- 
rivative school,  is  not  necessarily  committed  to  this 
solution  of  the  problem.  He  may  doubt  that  the 
supreme  end  of  life  is  to  get  and  to  give  the 
greatest  amount  of  pleasure.  And  appropriating 
the  language  of  that  Rabelaisian  description  of 
Carlyle's,  on  which  Mr.  Spencer  has  poured  forth 
eloquent  objurgation,  our  doubter  may  question 
whether  the  universe  is  merely  "an  immeasur- 
able swine's  trough,"  and  whether  "moral  evil 
is  unattainability  of  pig's-wash  and  moral  good 
attainability  of  ditto."  For  certainly  the  hedon- 
ist cannot,  in  the  absence  of  antecedent  obliga- 
tions which  this  theory  excludes,  but  deem  hi% 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


^Z7 


own  pleasure  the  highest  good ;  and  whether  ac- 
cepting or  not  the  psychology  of  the  school 
which  teaches  that  nothing  but  one's  own  pleas- 
ure can  he  the  object  of  desire,  he  will  acquiesce 
in  the  ethical  dictum  of  Bentham,  that  "  to  at- 
tain the  greatest  portion  of  happiness  for  himself 
is  the  object  of  every  rational  being."  But  as 
soon  as  this  opposition  between  his  own  pleas- 
ures and  the  pleasures  of  others  is  brought  dis- 
tinctly into  consciousness,  and  the  formei  recog- 
nized as  the  end,  the  impossibility  of  constructing 
an  ethic  on  this  basis  is  manifest.  There  is  no 
way  across  the  chasm  that  yawns  between  "  each 
for  himself"  and  "each  for  others."  And  if 
man  be  merely  a  pleasure-seeking  animal,  you 
but  mock  him  when  you  enjoin  him  to  promote 
the  happiness  of  others.  Accordingly,  a  sincere 
and  logical  utilitarian  who  felt  with  Mill,  that 
the  spirit  of  his  ethics  was  that  of  the  golden 
rule  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  would  drop  altogether 
the  notion  of  pleasure,  which  has  hitherto  filled 
the  system  with  inconsistencies,  and  allow  the 
ethical  principle,  thus  freed  from  the  accidental 
setting  of  a  psychological  hedonism,  to  proclaim 
itself  as  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber, or,  better  still,  as  the  well-leing  of  society. 
Whatever  be  the  content  of  that  well-being  (and 


138       The  End  Pleasure  or  Good? 

there  is  much  in  it  besides  pleasure),  it,  and  not 
happiness  either  of  self  or  others,  is  the  end 
which  utilitarianism  pure  and  simple,  the  utili- 
tarianism of  Mill  divorced  from  his  more  than 
dubious  psychology,  might  set  up  as  the  ultimate 
end  for  every  moral  agent.  And  this,  in  fact,  is 
the  supreme  principle  of  the  ethics  of  Darwin, 
though  he  directs  attention  rather  to  the  gene- 
sis of  moral  rules  than  to  the  reason  for  our  ob- 
serving them.  And  though  Mr.  Spencer  is  too 
strongly  influenced  by  the  national  ethics  to  fore- 
go the  final  i-eduction  of  morality  to  pleasure — 
and  even  the  agent's  own  pleasure — he  yet  main- 
tains that  those  acts  are  good  which  conduce 
to  the  welfare  of  self,  of  offspring,  and  of  soci- 
ety. The  same  end  is  recognized  by  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen  in  his  explanation  of  moral  rules  as 
means  of  social  preservation  ;  yet  Mr.  Stephen 
has  not  been  so  unfaithful  to  what  he  calls  his 
own  "  school " — Bentham,  Mill,  etc. — as  to  sep- 
arate its  psychology  of  self-seeking  from  its 
ethics  of  self-sacrifice. 

When  this  divorse  does  take  place,  however — 
and  already  it  is  heralded  in  Darwin — there  will 
be  no  longer  in  this  respect  a  fundamental  oppo- 
sition between  evolutionary  ethics  and  common- 
sense  morals.     Attempts  to  patch  up  a  truce,  on 


' 


n 


:«[  \ 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


139 


■ 


the  assumption  that  pleasures  might  through 
heredity  be  transformed  into  duties,  have  utterly 
failed.  But  the  simple  recognition  of  the  wel- 
fare of  society  as  an  ultimate  end  is  not  to  go 
outside  of  morality  to  find  a  reason  foi'  it,  against 
which  the  intuitionist  has  always  protested.  It  is 
to  take  one  virtue,  already  recognized  by  the  in- 
tuitioiil::^,  for  the  whole  of  virtue.  And  to  that 
extent  the  two  schools  are  in  essential  agieement. 
A  difference,  however,  appears  when  you  inquire 
if  there  are  not  virtues  which  the  general  formula 
of  promoting  the  well-being  of  others  does  not 
embrace.  Common-sense  seems  to  eay  there  are 
other  duties  as  original,  as  self-evident,  and  as 
obligatory,  as  benevolence.  And  it  does  look  ra- 
ther incredible  that  every  man  should  be  an  end 
to  others  and  not  to  himself.  We  do  not  easily 
rid  ourselves  of  the  conviction  that  goodness  con- 
sists rather  in  the  realization  of  a  certain  type  of 
character  in  ourselves  than  in  the  performance  of 
any  external  actions,  though  of  course  conduct 
promotive  of  the  welfare  of  others  would  be  one 
necessary  outcome  of  the  character  thus  indi- 
cated. 

I  come  now  to  a  third  characteristic  assump- 
tion of  current  evolutionary  ethics — the  fortuitous 
origin  of  morality  through  a  process  purely  me- 


140 


Third  Assumption. 


chanical.  This  maRt,  I  think,  be  regarded  as  the 
fundamental  tenet  of  the  school ;  but  in  England, 
at  least,  it  seems  to  have  been  taught  with  all  the 
reserve  of  an  esoteric  mystery.  The  accredited 
expounders  of  the  subject  have  in  their  exoteric 
writings  enveloped  this  point  in  such  a  wrapping 
of  extraneous  discussions  that  even  a  master 
in  ethics  like  Professor  Sidgwick  has  hazarded 
the  declaration  that  evolution,  however  con- 
ceived, can  make  no  difference  at  all  in  our 
ethical  theories.  But,  with  all  deference  to  so 
eminent  an  authority,  I  hold  that  if  this  mechan> 
ical  conception  of  moral  evolution  be  conceded, 
the  question  of  an  ethical  end — of  what  we  ought 
to  aim  at — becomes  unmeaning,  since  there  cannot, 
in  a  literal  sense,  be  any  ends  or  aims  for  a  being 
conceived  as  a  mere  mechanism,  even  though  its 
random  acts  have  through  natural  selection  been 
solidified  into  habits,  and  habits,  on  the  super- 
vention of  consciousness,  been  reflected  as  rules. 
And  this  interpretation  of  evolution  would  be  as 
fatal  to  practice  as  to  theory.  An  individual 
who  really  accepted  it  must  regard  moral  respon- 
sibility as  illusory,  as  nothing  but  an  echo  of 
the  modes  of  conduct  which  enabled  the  human 
species  to  overcome  what  was  untoward  to  its 
progress  or  what  threatened  its  extinction.    For 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


141 


him  tlie  entire  preceptive  part  of  morality  must 
eeoin  a  baseless  imposition.  And  in  the  courage- 
ous language  of  M.  Guyau  he  could  recognize 
nothing  but  U7ie  morale  sans  ohligation  ni  sano- 
tlon.  No  longer  avT6vofio<i  man  must  perforce 
be  avofio^.  Had  this  point  been  brought  out  as 
clearly  b}^  the  English  as  by  the  French  evolu- 
tionists, they  would  have  seen  that  their  own  prin- 
ciples required  tlicm  to  dismiss  the  incongruous 
problem  of  establishing  the  validity  of  moral 
rules,  even  if  they  still  persisted  in  speculating  on 
the  origin  of  them.  It  is  worse  than  idle  for 
mechanical  evolutionists  to  talk  of  the  reason  or 
end  or  ground  of  morality. 

That  morality  has  had  a  mechanical  origin  is, 
I  have  said,  the  fundamental  assumption  of  cur- 
rent evolutionary  ethics.  The  ancestors  of  man 
had  no  moral  fibre  in  their  constitution,  but 
through  long-inherited  experiences  of  the  conse- 
quences of  conduct  man  has  been  rendered  "or- 
ganically moral."  Just  as  intelligence,  in  general, 
according  to  the  same  theory,  has  been  generated 
in  unintelligent  beings  through  the  accumulation 
of  modifications  arising  from  intercourse  between 
the  organism  and  its  environment,  so  the  moral 
facultj^  in  particular,  is  the  result  of  a]l  tliose  ex- 
periences whereby  mutually  repellent  individual 


142     Mechanical  Origin  of  Morals. 

aniinalB  were  fused  together  into  society  and  en- 
abled to  perpetuate  a  victorious  existence.  The 
evolutionist  conceives  life  as  the  continuous  ad- 
justment of  inner  relations  to  outer  relations ;  so 
that,  even  before  the  rise  of  sentiency,  the  acts  of 
living  beings  must  have  been  adapted  to  their  en- 
vironment, and  intelligence,  when  it  did  emerge, 
could  be  nothing  but  the  consciousness  of  rela- 
tions already  blindly  established,  and  the  function 
of  conscience  could  only  be  to  recognize  the  utility 
of  what  promoted  life.  The  evolution  of  man— 
the  self-conscious  and  moral  person — from  lower 
forms  of  life  is  referred  to  physical  causation 
alone.  As  the  human  pedigree  has  been  traced 
up  to  the  simian  branch  of  the  animal  tree,  and 
no  ground  discovered  for  absolutely  (separating 
the  latest  from  the  earliest  offshoots,  our  most 
eminent  living  biologist  maintains  that  when 
Descartes  declared  all  animals  to  be  automata,  his 
only  error  lay  in  excluding  man  from  the  same 
class.  This  conscious  automaton  is  but  the  high- 
est term  of  an  animal  series  whose  law  of  devel- 
opment is  already  known,  and  everything  in  his 
constitution  is  explicable  by  that  law.  But  the 
evolution  of  life  has  realized  itself  through  a 
mechanical  process;  consequently  those  distinc- 
tive characteristics  which  mark  off  the  human 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


143 


from  the  einiiaii  species  must  be  the  prcxhicts 
of  the  same  process.  As  natural  selection  has 
endowed  all  beings  with  the  constitutions  and 
habits  and  faculties  which  they  actually  possess — 
the  eagle  with  his  eye,  the  bee  with  her  sting,  the 
lion  with  his  rage  and  strength — so  must  natural 
selection  have  endowed  man,  not  only  with  an 
erect  attitude,  but  also  with  a  reason  that  looks 
before  and  after  and  a  conscience  that  responds 
to  right  and  wrong.  The  mental  and  moral  fac- 
ulties are  both  reduced  to  the  rank  of  natural 
phenomena.  Indeed,  to  express  their  essentially 
derivative  and,  as  it  were,  accidental  character, 
a  new  word  has  been  coined,  and  intelligence  is 
described  as  an  "  epiphenomenon."  By  this  term 
is  meant  that  consciousness  is  a  merely  accessory 
aspect  of  the  human  automaton,  a  psychological 
index  of  corpoi*eal  movements  which  are  the 
prime  reality,  a  reflex  of  mechanism  which  would 
go  on  all  the  same  without  any  reflex,  just  as  an 
engine  would  move  along  the  rails  if  it  did  not 
whistle,  or  a  bird  flv  if  it  cast  no  shadow.  But 
if  the  school  interprets  consciousness  as  an  acci- 
dent of  the  human  automaton,  it  makes  conscience 
an  accident  of  this  accident.  First  mechanism 
realizing  itself  in  certain  relations  (by  means  of 
natural  selection),  then  consciousness  of  these 


'>■]! 


144      Connection  with  Metaphysics, 

relations,  then  approval  of  their  life-conserving 
tendencies,  or  conscience.  The  moral  faculty  is 
the  recognition  of  social  relations  ;  it  is  the  social 
instinct  of  the  animals  come  to  a  consciousness  of 
itself  in  man  ;  and  this  social  instinct  Is  but  the 
consolidation  of  habit,  and  habit  is  the  pro- 
duct, through  natural  selection,  of  random  actions 
struck  out  in  the  struggle  for  life.  Thus  the 
moral  nature  of  man  is  merged  in  the  mechanism 
of  nature.  The  logical,  as  the  chronological, 
jprius  is,  therefore,  not  intelligence,  but  mechan- 
ical action.  The  exegesis  of  Faust  receives  a 
startling  illustration :  Ln  Anfang  war  die 
That. 

This  moral  theory,  therefore,  implies  and  rests 
upon  a  system  of  metaphysics.  I  do  not  think  we 
can  too  often  reiterate  that  current  evolutionary 
ethics  is  the  outcome  of  a  very  dubious  physico- 
psychical  speculation.  From  overlooking  this 
connection  the  issue  between  moralists  of  this 
school  and  of  other  schools  has  not  been  clearly 
discerned,  and  the  very  heart  of  the  question 
has  been  generally  left  untouched.  I  do  not,  of 
course,  mean  to  call  in  question  the  results  of  the 
astronomical,  physical,  chemical,  and  biological 
sciences.  What  one  teaches  about  the  gradual 
formation  of  the  universe,  and  another  about  the 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


irly 
tion 
,of 
Ithe 
lical 
nal 
Ithe 


gradual  development  of  organisms  on  our  globe, 
I  accept  implicitly.     But  because  minerals  and 
plants  and  the  lower  animals  appeared  before 
man,  I  will  not,  therefore,  hold  that  they  were 
adequate  conditions  to  his  production,  or  that 
there  is  nothing  in  him  that  was  not  generated 
through  actions  and  reactions  between  an  animal 
system  and  its  physical  or  social  environment. 
Such    a    doctrine   used   to   be  called  material- 
ism, but  in  deference  to  the  feelings  of  specu- 
lative evolutionists  the  word  has  nowadays  been 
dropped.     All  the  objections,   however,   which 
were  formerly  urged  against  the  derivation  of 
mental  and  moral  functions  from  material  com- 
binations, however  finely  organized,  are  still  valid 
against  the  evolutionary  identification  of  intel- 
ligence with  the  modifications  produced  in  the 
nervous  and  muscular  systems  from  action  and  re- 
action between  the  organism  and  its  environment. 
Man  is  later  on  the  scene  than  the  unintelligent 
organisms  ;  bui  whence  his  intelligence  we  know 
not,  unless  it  be  the  emergence  of   something 
new  from  the  fountain  of  being,  from  the  under- 
lying ground  and  sustaining  cause  of  the  whole 
evolutionary  movement.     Certainly  it  was  not 
evolved  by  mere  repetition  of  mechanical  actions. 

"Were  intelligence  not  at  the  heart  of  the  cosmos, 
10 


■MM 


V\ 


146 


Both  Indefensible, 


it  could  not  have  turned  up  as  the  crowning  glory 
of  the  development  of  life. 

The  same  position  may  be  taken  np  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  current  evolutionary  ethics.  Biology 
warrants  the  belief  that  non-moral  beings  existed 
on  our  globe  long  before  the  appearance  of  the 
only  moral  being  we  know — man  ;  and  natural 
selection  explains  the  process  by  which  the  latter 
may  have  been  descended  from  the  former.  But 
natural  selection,  as  we  have  already  shown,  cre- 
ates no  new  material ;  it  merely  sits  in  judgment 
npon  what  has  already  appeared.  Given  acts,  or 
habits,  or  moral  practices,  natural  selection  is  the 
name  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest  of  them,  not 
the  talismanic  cause  which  originates  any  of  them. 
However  they  originate,  they  must  have  a  defi- 
nite relation  to  the  constitution  of  the  being  that 
manifests  them ;  and  to  suppose  that  moral  sen- 
timents, moral  notions,  moral  practices,  could  be 
grafted  upon  a  primitively  non-moral  being  is,  in 
the  first  place,  to  take  a  grossly  mechanical  view 
of  human  nature  and,  in  the  second  place,  to 
transgress  the  limits  alike  of  natural  selection  and 
of  evolutionary  science.  Yet  this  is  what  is  done 
by  our  evolutionary  moralists.  A  moral  law,  they 
tell  you,  is  the  formulation  by  intelligence  of  the 
social  practices  instinctively  followed  by  the  mora 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


147 


in 
ew 
to 
lid 
)iie 
ley 
the 
lora 


or  less  unintelligent  ancestors  of  man,  these  prac- 
tices themselves  having  crystallized  into  habits 
from  an  inchoate  chaos  of  random  acts.  "We  have 
in  the  preceding  chapter  considered  Darwin's 
derivation  of  instincts  from  casnal  actions,  and 
we  h  ive  here  only  to  inquire  whether  conscience 
is  nothing  but  the  social  instinct  illuminated  by 
intelligence.  "Were  it  so,  we  could  not  fail  to  ad- 
mire the  manner  in  which  morality  was  forced 
upon  unwilling  beings  until  at  last  appeared  an 
intelligence  capable  of  freely  accepting  it  and 
heartily  setting  about  its  realization.  As  in  the 
education  of  the  iiuman  race,  according  to  Les- 
Bing,  religion  is  at  first  revealed  only  tiiat  it  may 
ultimately  become  rational,  why  should  not  the 
practice  of  morality  at  first  have  been  compulsory 
that  it  might  in  due  time  become  free  and  gra- 
cious? But,  after  all,  I  believe  an  analysis  of 
the  facta  will  not  suffer  us  to  take  this  view  of  the 
providential  government  of  the  world.  In  the 
contents  of  the  moral  consciousness  I  find  unique 
elements,  unlike  anything  that  went  along  with 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  development  of  life,  and 
absolutely  incapable  of  resolution  into  practices 
useful  for  social  survival  blindly  followed  by  the 
non-moral  precursors  of  humanity.  If  the  social 
instinct  is,  as  the  theory  supposes,  only  a  means 


v\ 


t'  ■   \ 


148    Wreck  against  Right  and  Duty, 

of  preserving  society,  how  could  intelligence  ever 
take  it  for  more  than  that  ?  But  in  the  moral 
consciousness  of  mankind  there  is  olear  recogni- 
tion of  an  absolutely  worthf  ul.  And,  in  the  next 
place,  if  this  be  denied,  there  remains  one  ele- 
ment in  the  moral  consciousness  that  forever  dis- 
tinguishes it  from  a  mere  intelligence -illumi- 
nated social  instinct,  namely,  the  sense  of  duty. 
Even  if  moral  law  be  supposed  nothing  more  than 
the  expression  of  devices  wrought  out  nncon- 
Bciously  in  the  course  of  aeons,  for  securing  the 
vitality  and  well-being  of  society,  why  do  I  recog- 
nize myself  under  obligation  to  observe  the  law  ? 
This  consciousness  of  duty,  the  most  certain  and 
most  imperious  fact  in  our  experience,  whence  does 
it  come  if  man  have  no  moral  fibre  in  his  prim- 
itive constitution?  On  this  rock  the  ethics  of 
Kant,  giving  scientific  shape  to  human  morality, 
is  firmly  intrenched.  And  no  better  testimony 
to  its  security  could  be  found  than  the  shifts  to 
which  evolutionists  are  put  when  they  attempt  to 
resolve  this  element  of  the  moral  consciousness 
into  race-accumulated  experiences  of  utility.  Mr. 
Spencer,  indeed,  supposes  men  to  have  been  scared 
into  moral  obligation  by  the  baton  of  the  primi- 
tive policeman,  the  ostracism  of  primitive  society, 
and   the  hell  of  the  primitive  priest.    How  a 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


149 


to 
to 


red 
ini- 


society  could  exist  to  deal  out  these  political,  so- 
cial, and  religious  sanctions,  unless  it  rested  on  a 
mo7'al  basis,  the  evolutionist  does  not  explain. 
And  one  may,  therefore,  be  pardoned  for  seeing 
here  only  another  of  the  countless  attempts  to  de- 
rive morality  from  ideas  and  institutions  which 
already  presuppose  it.  The  va-Tepov  Trporepov  is 
the  bane  of  evolutionary  ethics.  Natuially 
enough,  the  sentiment  produced  by  the  terrors  of 
ancient  law,  politics,  and  religion,  will  decay  with 
the  cessation  of  its  causes ;  and  as  Mr.  Spencer 
identifies  this  sentiment  with  moral  obligation,  one 
can  understand  how  he  reaches  the  paradox  that 
the  "  sense  of  duty,  or  moral  obligation,  is  transi- 
tory." In  another  way  the  same  conclusion  is 
reached  by  M.  Guyau,  who  follows  Darwin.  Con- 
science is  the  social  instinct,  he  says,  and  the  scien- 
tific spirit  is  the  great  enemy  of  blind  instincts  ; 
it  illuminates  them,  and  in  the  flood-tide  of  light 
dissolves  them ;  what  habit  has  made,  reflection 
unmakes;  and  nothing  can  save  morality  when 
conscience  has  met  the  doom  of  every  instinct — 
dissolution  under  scientific  reflection.  "  Pan,  the 
nature-god,  is  dead  ;  Jesus,  the  man-god,  is  dead ; 
there  remains  the  ideal  god  within  us,  duty,  which 
is  also,  perhaps,  destined  one  day  to  die."  But  the 
irrefragable  reply  to  these  oracular  prophecies  is 


150     spencer  and  Guyau  on  Duty, 

that  tliey  rest  npon  a  misreading  of  the  actual 
record.  If  moral  obligation  be  the  effect  of  cer- 
tain historical  causes,  it  may  decline  with  the  de- 
cadence of  those  causes,  and  if  conscience  be  a 
blind  instinct,  it  may  follow  the  supposed  law  of 
dissolution  of  instincts  ;  but  the  conditional  ground 
of  the  consequence  is  in  neither  case  established, 
in  neither  case  does  it  rest  upon  evolutionary 
science,  in  neither  case  has  it  any  antecedent 
probability  apart  from  the  cLjpi'xori  prejudice  of 
the  utilitarian  in  favor  of  the  derivative  charac- 
ter of  morality  and  the  moral  faculties.  Instead 
of  so  accounting  for  the  rise  of  a  moral  sense  and 
moral  obligation,  as  a  kind  of  accident  in  our  con- 
stitution, mankind  (a  few  metaphysicians  apart) 
persists  in  regarding  them  as  of  the  very  essence 
of  human  nature.  The  absolute  "  ought "  cannot 
be  the  product  of  any  experience  with  the  primi- 
tive policeman  or  priest,  since  (apart  from  the  fact 
that  there  would  be  neither  without  it)  experience 
only  records  what  is  advantageous  for  certain  ends 
and  cannot,  therefore,  enjoin  anything  categori- 
cally. Hence  the  pretence  of  the  evolutionists 
to  have  reconciled  the  experiential  and  intuitive 
schools  of  ethics  cannot  be  sustained.  Those  pre- 
dicates of  the  moral  law  whicli,  in  the  earlier  part 
of  this  chapter,  we  found  the  cvohitionary  theojy 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


151 


. 


claiming  to  account  for — its  simplicity,  universal- 
ity, etc. — are  not  its  essential  attributes  ;  so  that, 
even  if  the  evolutionist's  contention  be  fijranted,  he 
leaves  untouched  the  fundamental  constituents  of 
the  moral  consciousness — our  sense  of  an  abso- 
lutely worthful,  the  right,  not  merely  the  useful, 
and  our  recognition  of  its  authority  over  us  as 
expressed  in  the  word  "  ought."  For  these  ideas 
no  experience  can  account,  and  every  experiential 
theory  virtually  explains  thein  away  as  the  indis- 
pensable condition  to  its  own  plausibility.  How- 
ever long  the  process,  whether  extending  through 
one  generation,  as  the  older  utilitarians  imagined, 
or  through  countless  generations,  as  the  evolutiono- 
utilitarians  assume,  there  never  will  be  success,  as 
Lotze  justly  observed,  in  fetching  into  an  empty 
soul,  by  means  of  the  impressions  of  experience,  a 
consciousness  of  moral  obligation. 

Kor,  in  fact,  does  evolutionary  science,  relieved 
of  the  metaphysicrJ  baggage  with  which  it  has 
hitherto  been  grievously  freighted,  require  us  to 
believe  in  the  possibility  of  this  desperate  feat. 
It  assumes  that  morality  has  been  developed 
throiigh  natural  selection.  And  because  natural 
selection  presupposes  a  utility — a  fittest  that  sur- 
vives— the  evolutionists  have  fallen  into  the  fal- 
lacy of  supposing  that  morality  was  nothing  hut 


152       Their  Fundamental  Fallacy, 


'■^ .  I 


a  utility.  That  is  the  explanation  of  the  plausi- 
bility of  their  ethical  theory  as  expounded  in  tbo 
earlier  part  of  the  present  chapter.  And  no  other 
refutation,  after  all  that  has  been  said,  need  now 
be  added  except  the  reminder  that  natural  selec- 
tion, though  wide-awake  to  the  uses  of  things,  is 
blind  to  their  nature  and  essence.  It  takes  ad- 
vantage of  the  utility  of  morality,  but  no  more 
determines  its  content  and  meaning  than  a  posi- 
tivist  who  passes  over  the  question  of  the  essence 
of  things.  It  acts  upon  germs  of  all  kinds,  once 
they  have  been  produced  and  are  moving  through 
phases  of  development ;  but  it  knows  not  what  the 
germs  are,  whence  they  come,  or  what  develops 
them.  The  whole  question,  so  far  as  ethics  is 
concerned,  turns  on  the  nature  of  those  primitive 
modifications  out  of  which  morality  has  bee*^ 
evolved.  But  on  that  point  evolutionary  science 
has  no  answer  of  its  own  to  give,  and  the  blank 
has  been  filled  by  the  preconceptions  of  evolu- 
tionary speculators.  Subordinating,  as  the  school 
has  hitherto  done,  intelligence  to  mechanism,  it 
has  invariably  sought  the  first  germ  of  con- 
science in  a  random  action  that  proved  useful  to 
the  species  in  which  it  was  struck  out.  We 
have,  on  the  contrary,  maintained  that  this  hypo- 
thetical derivation  passes  over  the  very  essence 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


153 


of  the  moral  consciousness;  nor  can  we  imag- 
ine any  other  way  of  deriving  it  which  does  not 
already  presuppose  it.  In  opposition  to  this 
mechanical  theory  of  conscience,  wo  hold  that  it 
is  an  ultimate  function  of  the  mind,  a::id  that 
in  germ  as  in  full  fruition  it  must  be  regarded,  not 
as  an  action,  but  as  an  ideal  of  action.  The  con- 
sciousness of  right  and  wrong  is  underived,  and, 
like  intelligence  in  general,  witnesses  to  a  supra- 
sensible  principle  in  man — a  principle  which  the 
wheels  of  mechanism,  grinding  through  eternity, 
could  never  of  themselves  produce.  This  view 
of  the  subject  may  be  affiliated  to  Darwinism  as 
readily  as  the  other.  For  an  abiding  ideal  of  ac- 
tion is,  to  say  the  least,  quite  as  beneficial  as  a 
chance  action  ;  and  wherever  there  is  an  advan- 
tage, there  natural  selection  may  operate.  But 
natural  selection  does  not  determine  the  mate- 
rial upon  which  it  works.  Given  the  forms  of 
primitive  morality,  whatever  they  be,  natural  se- 
lection only  settles  wliich  shall  perish  and  which 
survive.  Its  function  is  the  negative  one  of  sift- 
ing whatever  has  attained  to  positive  existence. 
In  the  book  of  Job,  Satan  represents,  according 
to  Professor  Davidson,  the  testing,  sifting  prov- 
idence of  God :  natural  selection  is  the  Satan  of 
the  evolutionary  powers.    Strange,  indeed,  that  it 


I 


ii' 


i 


I 


r 


1  ■; 


' 


h] 


^. 


I; 


fi' 


u 


154 


Further  Objections, 


should  ever  have  been  mistaken  for  the  povirers 
themselves  I 

The  ethical  conclusions  liero  reached  and  co- 
ordinated with  the  doctrine  of  evolution  and  Dar- 
winism (which  I  everywhere  take  for  granted) 
are  so  opposed  to  those  of  most  evolutionists 
that  some  fallacy  may  be  supposed  to  infect  all 
our  reasonings.  After  the  evolutionary  teachings 
of  the  last  twenty  years,  it  seems  either  blindness 
or  disingenuousness  to  maintain  that  evolution 
leaves  our  ethical  problems  precisely  where  it 
found  them.  And  so,  in  spite  of  all  the  preced- 
ing analyses  and  criticisms,  the  old  objections 
are  sure  to  recur.  Does  not  the  evolutionary 
doctrine  of  heredity  imply  that  man  is  what  his 
ancestry  has  made  him,  and  so  abrogate  our  be- 
lief in  the  freedom  of  the  human  will  ?  And 
does  not  goodness  cease  to  be  divine  when  you 
have  explained  moral  laws  as  a  statement  of  the 
habits  blindly  struck  out  and  blindly  followed  by 
simian  or  semi-human  groups  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  ?  If  morality  is  mei-ely  a  formulation 
of  the  practices  which,  accidentally  liit  upon  by 
some  group  of  animals,  made  the  group  coherent, 
and  thus  enabled  it  to  vanquish  rival  groups  with 
different  practices,  would  it  not  seem  merely  ac- 
cidental   that  justice   and   truthfulness  are  vir- 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


155 


tues,  and  not  injustice  and  lying  ?  For  if  these 
vices,  or  others,  had  enabled  those  primitive  semi- 
human  societies  to  survive,  they  would  not  have 
been  vices,  but  virtues  ;  for  virtue  is  nothing  but 
a  useful  means  of  social  survival.  Will  not  evo- 
lution, then,  as  thus  interpreted,  work  revolution 
in  our  views  of  the  moral  nature  of  man,  sineo 
it  implies  that  morality  is  not  grounded  in  the 
nature  of  things,  but  something  purely  relative 
to  man^s  circumstances — a  happy  device  whereby 
man's  ancestors  managed  to  cohere  in  a  united 
society  and  so  kill  out  rival  and  disunited  groups  J 
Now,  it  is  not  necessary  to  deny  either  the  so- 
cial utility  of  morals  or  the  influence  of  heredity 
in  order  to  show  that,  whatever  the  first  appear- 
ance, evolution  is  not  in  reality  revolution  in  tho 
sphere  of  man's  moral  nature.  It  is  no  doubt 
true  that  heredity  supplies  us  with  much  of  the 
material  out  of  which  we  make  our  characters. 
But  it  is  only  by  an  oversight  that  we  identify 
our  character  with  the  inherited  elements  out  of 
which  wo  form  it.  As  Aristotle  prof  our  dly  ob- 
served, nature  does  not  make  us  good  or  bad, 
she  only  gives  us  the  capacity  of  becoming  good 
or  bad — that  is,  of  moulding  our  own  characters. 
Emphasize  as  you  will,  then,  the  bulk  of  the  in- 
heritance I  have  received  from  my  ancestors,  it 


\» 


1 56         Evolution  not  Revolution, 

Btill  remains  true  that  in  moral  character  I  am 
what  I  make  myself.  On  stepping  stones  of  their 
dead  selves  men  rise  to  higlier  things ;  and 
neither  our  ability  to  do  this,  nor  tlie  conscious- 
ness of  that  ability  implied  in  the  freedom  of  the 
will,  is  affected  in  any  way  by  evolution. 

But  surely,  it  will  bo  objected,  evolution  does 
mean  revolution  in  our  views  of  human  nature, 
if  it  makes  moral  rules  a  mere  socia)  utility.  I 
admit  the  conclusion,  but  reject  its  ^remises. 
For,  as  I  have  already  urged,  the  facts  of  human 
life  will  not  allow  us  to  interpret  morality  as  a 
mere  accidental  arrangement  wliereby  our  animal 
ancestors  came  out  victorious  in  the  struggle  for 
life.  I  do  not  deny  that  morality  would,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  bo  useful  to  any  society  practising 
it  in  the  war  of  all  against  all  in  the  struggle  for 
life.  That  it  is  useful  is  clear  from  the  readiness 
with  which  people  follow  Hamlet's  advice  to  hia 
mother  and  assume  a  virtue  when  they  have  it 
not.  But  if  morality  be  nothing  more  than  mere 
social  utility,  a  mere  device  which  enabled  man's 
ancestors  to  kill  out  rival  groups,  I  fail  to  under- 
stand how  there  has  arisen  in  man  a  conscience 
which  makes  cowards  of  us  all ;  a  remorse  which 
drives  a  Lady  Macbeth  to  madness,  and  a  Judas 
to  suicide;  a  sense  of  eternal  right  so  strong  that 


Darwinism  in  Ethics, 


157 


no  theory  can  niako  us  believe  we  are  hoodwinked 
into  righteouBuess,  truth,  and  juutice,  by  the  mere 
accident  that  lying,  injustice,  and  unrighteousness 
were  less  useful  in  liolding  primitive  societies 
together  and  enabling  them  to  kill  out  their 
rivals.  And  all  this  might  bo  conceded  by  the 
evolutionist,  had  ho  not  fallen  into  the  fallacy  of 
holding  that,  because  virtue  is  socially  useful, 
therefore  it  is  nothing  but  a  social  utility.  There 
are  other  things  besides  moralitv  which  favor  the 
survival  of  primitive  societies.  We  have  already 
epoken  of  the  advantages  of  an  erect  attitude  and 
of  a  sound  intelligence.  Yet  the  evolutionist 
does  not  call  these  characters  mere  social  utilities. 
The  eye,  for  example,  has  no  existence  among 
the  lowest  animals  ;  yet  when  it  does  appear,  its 
own  new  story  is  accepted  as  a  fresh  revelation 
of  fact.  Instead  of  describing  it  as  an  advantage 
in  the  struggle  for  life,  the  evolutionist  sees  in 
the  new  organ  the  possibility  of  a  deeper  com- 
munion with  reality;  and  the  more  developed 
the  organ  the  more  valuable  its  evidence.  The 
earliest  eye  was  probably  nothing  more  than  a 
tingling  sensitiveness  to  light  and  darkness.  The 
most  developed  eye  discerns  a  spectrum  of  seven 
colors ;  and  along  with  this  advance  it  has  also 
acquired   the  capacity  of    measuring  distances, 


158        Sense t  Intellecty  Conscience* 


U'  J 


u;  '^ 


m 


magnitudes,  and  situations.  Both  tliese  func- 
tions of  tlie  eye  \vere  eminently  useful  in  the  strug- 
gle for  life:  they  enabled  their  animal  possessor 
to  get  food  more  easily  and  escape  foes  more 
deftly.  Yet  the  evolutionist  does  not  hold  the 
eye  is  merely  a  utility.  Bringing  the  surprise  of 
something  new  and  unexpected,  the  eye,  he  will 
recognize,  is  useful  only  because  it  makes  us 
aware  of  fact.  But  if  you  accept  the  evidence  of 
the  eye  when  it  testifies  to  the  colors  or  sizes  of 
objects,  you  cannot  reject  the  depositions  of  con- 
science to  the  moral  character  of  conduct  and 
motives.  This  is  a  new  mental  function,  and  has 
the  same  claim  upon  you  as  the  other.  The  va- 
lidity of  the  intuition,  "Injustice  is  wrong,"  is 
neither  greater  nor  less  than  the  validity  of  the 
perception,  "  Snow  is  white."  The  vision  of  both 
the  outer  and  the  inner  eye  is  useful,  but  useful 
simply  because  each  gives  us  new  revelations  of 
reality. 

The  same  result  is  reached  by  comparing  the 
deliverances  of  conscience  with  the  discoveries  of 
intelligence.  The  lowest  animals  have  neither 
conscience  nor  reason.  The  infinite  advantage  of 
either  we  have  already  described.  Even  the 
germ  of  reason  suffices  to  make  man  lord  of  crea- 
tion.    Think  only  of  the  significance  of  the  dis- 


Darwinism  in  Ethics. 


159 


■ 


covery  that  twice  two  are  four.  An  intelligence 
advanced  to  tliat  point  is  on  the  way  to  geometry, 
trigonometry,  and  the  calculus,  to  all  those  sciences 
whose  application  has  changed  the  face  of  the 
material  world.  As  the  highest  mathematics  is 
useful  to  us,  so  was  the  first  germ  useful  to  our 
ancestors.  But  it  does  not,  therefore,  follow  that 
arithmetic  is  merely  a  social  utility.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  useful  for  the  reason  that  it  brings 
man  into  deepening  relation  with  fact ;  but  iis 
validity  is  wholly  independent  of  its  advantage 
to  mankind,  and  only  the  satirist  could  suggest 
that  twice  two  would  be  five  if  that  product 
were  more  advantageous  to  us.  Arithmetical 
facts  cannot  be  determined  by  a  plebiscite  of 
utilitarians.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  de- 
liverance of  conscience  that  injustice  is  wrong. 
Ultimate  mathematical  principles  and  ultimate 
moral  principles  have  the  same  intuitive  evi- 
dence ;  and  it  is  not  weakened  by  the  assumption 
that  man  owes  his  bodily  organism  to  animals  in 
which  thei'e  was  no  trace  either  of  a  moral  or  a 
mathematical  faculty.  Fact  is  fact ;  and  neither 
morality  nor  geometry  ceases  to  be  objectively 
grounded  from  the  accident  that  our  ancestors 
only  gradually  came  to  an  apprehension  of  them. 
From  all  points  of  view,  then,  we  are  led  to  the 


1 60        Evoluiiono-utiliiarianism, 


ji  a ' 


same  result.  Evolutionary  science  in  general, 
natural  selection  in  particular,  does  not  necessi- 
tate, or  even  indicate,  a  new  system  of  etliics.  It 
stands  logically  indifferent  between  intuitionism 
and  utilitarianism,  though  from  the  accident  that 
most  expounders  of  evolution  happened  to  be 
utilitarians  there  has  arisen  a  belief  that  the  two 
were  in  some  way  connected.  In  reality,  evolu- 
tionary ethics,  as  hitherto  expounded,  is  nothing 
but  an  arbitrary  combination  of  utilitarianism  in 
one  or  other  of  its  forms  with  a  speculative  meta- 
physics which  discovers  the  ground  of  mind  and 
conscience  in  an  antecedent  physical  or  nervous 
mechanism.  And  as  such  it  not  only  has  no  sup- 
port from  evolutionary  science^  but  is  at  the  same 
time  exposed  to  all  the  objections  which  the 
common-sense  of  mankind  has  plways  brought 
against  every  empirical  theory  of  morals  and 
every  mechanical  theory  of  intelligence. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  ETHIOAL   SPECULATIONS   OF  DARWIN. 


From  our  consideration  of  tlie  logical  bearings 
of  evolutionary  science  upon  the  fundamental 
questions  of  morals  we  now  pass  to  an  examiha- 
tion  of  the  ethical  speculations  of  Darwin.  It 
will  be  advisable  to  begin  with  an  exposition  of 
his  views,  after  which  we  shall  have  to  inquire 
into  their  validity,  as  well  as  determine  their  re- 
lation to  evolutionary  biology.  Aid,  for  reasons 
that  will  be  evident  as  we  proceed,  the  account 
of  the  moral  faculties  must  bo  supplemented  by 
an  account  of  the  intellectual  faculties. 

Darwin  himself  confesses  that  the  greatest  ob- 
stacle to  the  acceptance  of  the  hypothesis  which 
he  had  framed  to  account  for  the  phenomena  of 
life  lies  in  the  hig*^.  "  p.ndard  of  man's  intellectual 
powers  and  moral  disposition.  And  his  endeavor 
is  to  show  that  the  mental  faculties  of  man  differ 
only  in  degree,  and  not  at  all  in  kind,  from  those 
of  the  lower  animals ;  and  that  man's  moral  at- 
tainments are,  under  evolution,  the  necessary  cor- 
11 


\'\ 


162 


Human  Mind  Evolved, 


H  I 


relate  of  this  superiority  of  intellectnal  power. 
We  have  now  to  follow  this  process  of  affiliating 
human  reason  and  conscience  upon  animal  intel- 
ligence and  instinct. 

On  the  origin  of  intelligence  in  our  world 
Darwin  disclaims  the  knowledge  which  some 
other  evolutionary  thinkers  profess.  In  what 
manner  the  mental  powers  were  first  developed 
in  *he  lower  organisms  he  holds  "  as  hopeless  an 
inquiry  as  how  life  itself  first  originated."  He 
accepts  the  facts  as  he  finds  them,  without  pro- 
fessing to  explain  them.  Animals  are  alive  and 
intelligent ;  the  law  of  the  evolution  of  life  is 
known  ;  what  if  the  development  of  intelligence 
were  subject  to  the  same  law  %  If  man,  physically 
considered,  is  just  a  highly  developed  animal,  is 
he  more  on  his  mental  side?  Is  not  his  intel- 
lect, like  his  physical  organism,  the  product  of 
natural  selection  ?  It  must  certainly  be  admitted 
that,  wide  as  the  interval  confessedly  is  between 
the  mental  powers  of  the  lowest  man  and  the 
highest  ape,  it  is  not  so  wide  as  the  interval  be- 
tween the  highest  ape  and  a  fish  like  the  lamprey 
or  lancelet ;  and  if  this  latter  interval  is  filled  by 
numberless  gradations  now  in  existence,  it  is  not 
impossible  that  the  blank  between  the  human 
and  the  simian  mind  may  once  have  been  covered 


Fit 


Darwin's  Ethical  Theory,         itj 


IS 


in 
3d 


by  intervening  varieties  which  are  now  totally 
extinct.  And  so  far  as  regards  the  action  of 
natural  selection  in  the  evolution  of  mind,  if,  as 
must  be  admitted,  such  slight  beneficial  varia- 
tions of  intelligence,  as  may  now  be  perceived  to 
occur  among  animals  and  to  be  inherited  by  their 
offspring,  occurred  in  the  past  history  of  the 
world,  and  gave  the  individuals  so  favored  an  ad- 
vantage in  the  struggle  for  life ;  then  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  natural  selection,  which  issues 
in  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  must  always  have 
spared  the  most  intelligent  animals,  and  might, 
therefore,  in  the  course  of  ages,  by  perpetuat- 
ing the  transmitted  intelligence  of  countless  gen- 
erations of  victorious  combatants,  have  at  last 
evolved  such  a  combination  of  mental  powers  as 
enabled  their  fortunate  possessor,  the  veritable 
heir  of  all  the  ages,  to  make  weapons  for  the  de- 
struction of  his  enemies,  to  use  tools  for  procur- 
ing the  satisfaction  of  his  own  wants,  to  utter 
articulate  sounds  for  conveying  information  to  his 
fellows,  and,  finally,  with  many  additional  accom- 
plishments, to  come  forth  as  man,  the  most  domi- 
nant of  all  living  creatures,  the  grandest  intellect- 
ual and  sole  moral  being  in  this  terrestrial  world. 
The  probability  thus  established  by  analogy 
of  general  inference,  that  man's  mind  is  simply  a 


164     Compared  with  Animal  Mind, 


;J!' 


m 


\w 


\i\   1 1 


%    ' 


!       \ 


development  from  the  brute's,  differing  from  it 
only  in  degree,  is  strengthened  by  Darwin'e  com- 
parison of  the  two,  as  manifested  in  all  the  forms 
of  intelligence  from  blind  sensation  np  to  self- 
conscious  reason.  In  the  instincts  of  self -preser- 
vation, sexual  love,  and  mother-love,  man  and 
beast  do  not  differ.  And  since  both  have  the 
same  organs  of  sense,  they  agree  in  sensuous  per- 
ception. Like  man,  too,  the  lowt  r  animals  feel 
pleasure  and  pain,  happiness  and  misery.  They 
experience,  also,  the  same  emotions.  With  them, 
as  with  us,  terror  causes  the  muscles  to  tremble, 
the  heart  to  palpitate,  and  the  hair  to  stand  on 
end.  Courage  and  timidity  we  may  see  in  our 
dogs,  good  and  bad  tempers  in  our  horses,  rage 
and  revenge  in  monkeys  and  other  animals.  A 
dog  may  be  as  jealous  as  his  mistress,  and  as  fond 
of  praise  as  the  urchin  she  sends  to  school. 
African  monkeys  have  been  known  to  die  of 
grief  for  the  loss  of  their  young. 

Great  as  the  animal  capacity  for  emotion  there- 
fore is,  it  does  not,  however,  exceed  the  concomi- 
tant intellectual  power.  All  animals  feel  wonder, 
and  many  exhibit  curiosity.  Darwin  gives  an 
amusing  account  of  the  mental  struggle  which 
monkeys  in  the  Zoological  Gardens  underwent,  be- 
tween their  instinctive  dread  of  snakes  and  their 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory.         165 


curiosity  to  peep  into  a  paper  bag  containing  one, 
which  he  placed  among  them.  Monkeys  have 
also  the  faculty  of  imitation  to  a  wonderful  de- 
gree. And  attention,  the  indispensable  condition 
of  all  intellectual  progress,  is  conspicuous  in  any 
animal  waiting  for  its  prey.  Memory,  too,  they 
share  with  us.  After  an  absence  of  five  years 
and  two  days,  Darwin's  dog  followed  and  obeyed 
him  exactly  as  if  he  had  "  parted  with  him  only 
half  an  hour  before."  The  power  of  imagination 
is  evidenced  by  the  sounds  and  movements  of  ani- 
mals during  their  dreams.  And  of  the  highest 
faculty  of  the  human  mind  Darwin  says,  "  only 
a  few  persons  now  dispute  that  animals  possess 
some  power  of  reasoning."  For  example,  the 
Vienna  bear  that  deliberately  made  with  his  paw 
a  current  in  some  water,  which  was  close  to  the 
bars  of  his  cage,  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  a 
piece  of  floating  bread  within  his  reach,  must 
have  performed  the  same  inductive  reasoning  as 
the  lowest  savage  or  the  highest  scientist. 

If  it  is  said,  in  reply,  that  man  alone  is  capa- 
ble of  progressive  improvement,  this  must  be  pro- 
nounced doubtful  in  face  of  the  fact  that  old  ani- 
mals ai-e  harder  to  catch  than  young  ones ;  that 
birds  in  the  course  of  a  very  few  years  cease  to  kill 
themselves  by  flying  against  new  telegraph-lines; 


i 


I 


:    »      '  ,  '. 


1 66  Use  of  Tools  and  Speech, 

that  animals  both  lose  and  acquire  caution  in  re- 
lation to  man  and  other  animals,  and  that  our 
domestic  dogs  have  attained  to  moral  qualities  un- 
known to  the  wolves  and  jackals  from  which  they 
are  descended. 

!Nor  does  the  capacity  to  use  tools  imply,  as  has 
been  urged,  a  fundamental  difference  between 
the  mental  powers  of  man  and  of  other  animals ; 
for  the  chimpanzee,  in  a  state  of  nature,  cracks  a 
fruit  somewhat  like  a  walnut  with  a  stone,  and 
troops  of  Abyssinian  baboons  have  been  known 
to  attack  their  foes,  human  and  simian,  by  rolling 
down  stones  from  the  mountains  upon  their  heads. 
So  that  apes  as  well  as  savages  use  weapons  and 
implements ;  and  though  savages  now  grind  and 
polish  stones  for  definite  purposes  of  utility  and 
defence,  as  did  also  their  neolithic  ancestors,  the 
most  primitive  men  who  have  left  any  record  of 
themselves,  the  men  of  the  palaeolithic  age,  had 
not  advanced  beyond  the  use  of  rough,  ungronnd 
stones,  which  difPered  from  the  natural  tools  and 
weapons  of  the  apes  only  in  being  slightly 
though  rudely  fashioned. 

The  possession  of  articulate  speech  is  regarded 
by  naturalists,  like  Huxley  and  Cuvier,  and  phi- 
lologists, like  Max  Miiller,  as  the  grand  distinctive 
character  of  man  ;  but  Darwin  holds  that  lan- 


m. 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory.  167 

guage  has  been  developed  from  the  cries  and  gest" 
ures  of  the  lower  animals.  The  difference  lies 
solely  in  the  infinitely  larger  power  which  man 
possesses  of  associating  together  the  most  diver- 
sified sounds  and  ideas.  And  this  power,  like 
language  itself,  has  been  slowly  and  unconsciously 
developed  by  many  steps.  The  beginning  of 
language  was  not  improbably  made  by  some  wise 
ape -like  animal  imitating  the  growl  of  a  beast  of 
prey,  for  the  sake  of  warning  his  companions  of 
the  expected  attack — much  as  at  present  fowls 
give  one  another  warning  of  the  hawk,  and  mon- 
keys utter  signal-cries  of  danger  to  their  fellows. 
It  is  true  that  no  existing  ape  uses  his  vocal  or- 
gans for  speech  ;  but  this  entitles  us  to  infer  only 
that  his  intelligence  is  not  sufficiently  advanced. 
The  first  speaking  progenitor  of  man  must  have 
had  far  more  highly  developed  mental  powers 
than  the  chimpanzee  or  gorilla.  But  there  is 
nothing  in  the  faculty  of  articulate  speech,  so 
Darwin  concludes,  which  offers  "  any  insuperable 
objection  to  the  belief  that  man  has  been  devel- 
oped from  some  lower  form." 

Neither,  then,  in  the  higher  intellectual  facul- 
ties nor  in  language,  which  has  contributed  so 
much  to  their  development,  does  Darwin  find 
anything  to  prove  that  the  immense  difference 


1 68 


Conscience, 


;ri   ■ 


between  the  mind  of  the  lowest  man  and  that  of 
the  highest  ape  is  more  than  a  difference  of 
degree.  The  moral  sense,  however,  he  acknowl- 
edges is  peculiar  to  man,  and  it  affords,  he  main- 
tains, the  "  best  and  highest  distinction  between 
man  and  the  lower  animals."  But  even  this 
faculty  turns  out  not  to  be  beyond  the  genetic 
power  of  natural  selection.  For  the  awful  voice 
of  conscience,  which  silenced  the  scepticism  of 
Immanuel  Kant  and  compelled  him  to  a  belief 
in  the  moral  communion  of  man  with  a  super- 
sensible world  that  pure  reason  knows  not, 
seemed  to  the  scientific  epigon  of  British  utili- 
tarianism only  the  articulate  utterance  of  the 
dumb  social  instincts  of  the  animal  world  as,  in 
the  evolution  of  animal  intelligence,  they  have 
been  developed,  partly  by  expression  in  language, 
but  especially  by  the  ever-deepening  conscious- 
ness, inevitable  to  an  advancing  intellect,  of  the 
greater  persistency  of  social  instincts  in  compari- 
son with  all  other  impulses  to  action.  The  so- 
cial instincts  of  the  animal  are  by  the  purging 
rays  of  ascending  intelligence  transmuted  into  a 
conscience.  That  sensibility  of  honor  which 
feels  a  stain  like  a  wound  is  only  the  far-off 
tremor  of  a  sympathetic  chord  whereby  some  an- 
cestral group  of  animals,  in  the  dissonant  strug- 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         169 

gle  for  existence,  became  harmoniously  nnited  in 
a  common  and  a  victorious  defence. 

"Any  animal  whatever,"  says  Darwin,  "en- 
dowed with  well-marked  social  instincts,  the  pa- 
rental and  filial  affections  being  here  included, 
would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral  sense,  or  con- 
science, as  soon  as  its  intellectual  powers  had  be- 
come as  well,  or  nearly  as  well,  developed  as  in 
man."  Not  that  any  social  animal,  with  the 
same  mental  faculties,  would  acquire  exactly  the 
same  moral  sense  as  ours ;  for  the  natui-e  of 
the  moral  sense  is  determined  by  the  conditions 
of  the  animal's  life.  If,  for  instance,  men  were 
reared  under  precisely  the  same  conditions  as 
hive-bees,  they  would  possess  a  conscience  which 
required  unmarried  women,  like  the  worker-bees, 
to  kill  their  brothers,  and  mothers  to  kill  their 
fertile  daughters. 

Conscience,  or  the  moral  sense,  being,  according 
to  this  theory,  derived  from  sociability,  it  may 
be  worth  while  glancing  at  the  operations  of  that 
instinct  in  the  lower  animals.  That  animals  are 
social  we  may  see  in  our  horses,  cattle,  and  sheep, 
in  rooks,  jackdaws,  and  starlings,  in  creatures  as 
far  asunder  as  ants  and  monkeys.  The  most 
common  mutual  service  of  the  higher  animals  is 
to  warn  one  another  of  danger.    As  danger-signal. 


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III 


Photographic 

Sciences 

Corporation 


23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14SS0 

(716)872-4503 


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170 


Animal  Sociability, 


I 


rabbits  stamp  on  the  ground  with  their  hindfeet ; 
and  the  chamois,  as  the  hunter  in  Tdl  knows, 
stamp  with  their  forefeet,  whistling  at  the  same 
time.  Animals  also  assist  one  anotlicr  in  sick- 
ness or  distress,  even  at  the  risk  of  life.  An 
Abyssinian  baboon  once  returned  alone  to  a  pack 
of  dogs  that  had  driven  ofiE  liis  troop  and  carried 
away  a  young  baboon  which,  left  behind  in  the 
rout,  was  calling  piteously  for  ^id.  Besides  love 
and  sympathy,  social  animals  exhibit  self-control, 
fidelity  to  one  another,  and  obedience  to  the 
leader.  The  complex  tissue  of  sociability  is  prob- 
ably an  extension  of  the  parental  and  filial  affec- 
tions, originating,  like  them,  in  the  action  of 
natural  selection.  Under  the  same  imperious 
law,  sympathy,  too,  has  been  developed,  if  not  ac- 
quired ;  for  the  most  sympathetic  animals  would 
flourish  best  and  rear  the  greatest  number  of 
offspring.  In  case  of  a  conflict  between  impulses 
or  instincts,  it  is  manifest  that  in  the  struggle 
for  life  the  one  most  beneficial  to  the  species 
must  in  the  long  run  triumph.  "What  if  con- 
science were  but  such  a  persistent  social  instinct  ? 
We  must  turn  to  man  to  see. 

Man  is  a  social  animal.  And  if  we  may  argue 
from  the  analogy  of  the  majority  of  the  quadrn- 
mana,  his  ancestors  as  far  back  as  the  simian  stage 


' 


Darwin^ s  Ethical  Theory,         171 

were  social  likewise.  He  inherits,  accordingly,  a 
tendency  to  be  fait^.f ul  to  his  comrades  and  obe- 
dient to  the  leader  of  his  tribe.  But  his  sympa- 
thetic impulses  are  not,  as  in  some  lower  animals, 
crystallized  into  special  instincts  which  define  his 
action  under  all  circumstances.  Keason  and  ex- 
perience must,  at  least  in  later  stages,  be  the  main 
guides  of  his  conduct.  But  as  he  is  a  sympathetic 
animal,  he  must  also  be  influenced  greatly  by  tlie 
wishes  and  opinions  of  his  fellow-men,  whose  ap- 
probation he  courts,  whose  blame  he  strives  to 
avoid.  This  motive  to  conduct  would  be  at  its 
8trong3st  when  reason  was  it  its  weakest.  Hence, 
while  the  rational  philosopher  of  modern  times 
makes  little  of  the  opinion  of  others,  and,  feeling 
himself  the  supreme  judge  of  his  own  conduct, 
sets  his  heart  against  violating  in  his  person  that 
dignity  of  humanity  of  M'hich  he  believes  himself 
the  bearer,  his  savage  ancestor,  ignorant  of  the 
sentiment  of  humanity,  has  just  reason  enough  to 
recognize  the  force  of  public  opinion  in  the  set 
of  individuals  with  whom  he  happens  to  be  asso- 
ciated, without  any  thought  of  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, or  with  the  thought  of  them  only  as  ene- 
mies. The  social  instinct,  developed  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  through  natural  selection, 
must^  willy-nilly,  have  been  the  supreme  law  of 


ly-i 


Grows  into  Moral  Sense, 


i     J 


M  I 


i  P 


life  for  primitive  man  as  for  his  ape-like  fore- 
fathers. \  ^ 
It  is  now  in  this  abiding  sympathetic  impulse, 
acqaired  through  natural  selection  for  the  g'>od  of 
the  community,  that  we  must  seek  the  origin  of 
the  moral  sense,  or  conscience.  Already  in  its 
persistency  over  other  impulses  we  may  discern 
a  basis  for  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  law.  A 
permanent  and  strong  instinct  in  the  presence  of 
an  evanescent  impulse  awakens  a  feeling  of  obli- 
gation, which  we  express  by  sa^  •  _  that  it  ought 
to  be  obeyed.  "  A  pointer  dog,  if  able  to  reflect 
on  his  past  conduct,  would  say  to  himself,  *I 
ought  (as,  indeed,  we  say  of  him)  to  have  pointed 
at  that  hare,  and  not  have  yielded  to  the  passing 
temptation  of  hunting  it.' "  But  this  preroga- 
tive of  approving  and  disapproving  is  what  con- 
stitutes man  a  moral  being — the  sole  moral  ani- 
mal. It  is,  as  it  were,  a  voice  lent  by  intelligence 
to  the  dumb  instincts  and  impulses  to  action  that 
struggle  in  the  breast  of  evei-y  animaL  Why, 
then,  is  conscience  more  than  a  simple  expression 
of  the  motives  at  play  ?  If  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  or  of  vengeance  has  triumphed  over 
the  social  instinct,  why  does  a  man  regret  that  he 
followed  the  one  natural  impulse  rather  than  the 
other,  and  why  does  he  f ui'ther  feel  that  he  ought 


hi 


Darwifis  Ethical  Theory,         \  73 

to  regret  his  conduct  ?  Here  is  a  profound  differ- 
ence between  man  and  the  lower  animals;  but 
Darwin  finds  an  explanation  of  it  in  the  immense- 
ly superior  development  of  man's  mental  faculties, 
lieflection  is  an  unavoidable  incident  of  an  in- 
telligence so  highly  developed  as  man's.  Images 
of  all  past  actions  and  motives  would  pass  inces- 
jsantly  through  the  mind  of  the  earliest  human 
being.  With  him,  as  with  other  social  animals, 
the  sympathetic  instincts  would  be  ever  present 
and  persistent ;  while  the  inetincts  of  self-preser- 
vation and  hunger,  or  the  impulse  to  vengeance, 
are  in  their  nature  transitory,  or  scarcely  ever 
present  to  consciousness.  Accordingly,  when  an 
impulse  to  vengeance  has  mastered  man's  social 
instincts,  he  reflects  and  compares  the  now  fad- 
ing idea  of  this  impulse  with  the  ever  present 
social  instincts.  On  one  side  he  finds  the  gratifi- 
cation of  vengeance  at  the  cost  of  his  compan- 
ions ;  on  the  other,  the  outgoings  of  his  own  ever 
present  spontaneous  sympathy,  re-enforced  with 
the  knowledge  that  his  comrades  consider  it 
praiseworthy ;  and  the  consequence  is  that  that 
feeling  of  dissatisfaction  which  invariably  re- 
sults from  any  unsatisfied  instinct  now  arises, 
as  soon  as  it  is  perceived  that  the  enduring  and 
always  present  social  instinct    has   yielded    to 


T? 


I 


=!i 


I"     i: 


f^ 


174 


Aided  by  Reflection, 


some  other  instinct,  at  the  time  stronger,  hnt 
neither  enduring  in  its  nature  nor  leaving  be- 
hind it  a  very  vivid  impression.  Thus  retribu- 
tion comes  when  the  strong  impulse  which  im- 
pelled to  revenge  has  grown  weak  in  memory  and 
seems  as  nothing  before  the  ever-endnring  social 
instincts  and  the  desire  to  stand  well  W7th  oth- 
ers. Hence  regret,  remorse,  and  penitential  tears. 
And  the  poor  sinner  will  "consequently  resolve, 
more  or  less  firmly,  to  act  differently  for  the  fut- 
ure ;  and  this  is  conscience,  for  conscience  looks 
backward  and  serves  as  a  guide  for  the  future." 
This  conscience,  which  thus  springs  by  reflection 
out  of  the  sympathetic  impulses  to  action,  is 
moulded  by  the  approbation  and  disapprobation 
of  others,  the  appreciation  of  which  also  rests  on 
sympathy  ;  and  after  the  power  of  .language  has 
been  acquired,  the  expressed  will  of  the  commu- 
nity naturally  becomes  the  paramount  guide  to 
individual  action.  Habit  further  confirms  the 
individual  in  virtuous  conduct,  until  at  last  such 
perfect  self-command  is  acquired  that  he  yields 
instantly  and  without  a  struggle  to  his  social  sym- 
pathies and  instincts,  including  his  feeling  for  the 
judgment  of  his  fellows.  It  is  probable  that  the 
habit  of  self-command,  so  laboriously  attained, 
may  be  transmitted  to  offspring.    And  thus  man 


Darwin's  Ethical  Theory,         175 


finally  comes  to  feel,  throngh  acquired  and,  per- 
haps, inherited  habit,  that  it  is  best  for  him  to 
obey  his  more  persistent  impulses.  These  alone 
give  meaning  to  the  imperious  word  Ought, 
which  ^^  seems  merely  to  imply  the  consciousness 
of  a  rule  of  conduct,  however  it  may  have  origi- 
nated." 

Such  is  Darwin's  famous  theory  of  the  moral 
sense.  Its  significance  for  speculative  ethics  is 
a  sufficient  justification  of  the  detailed  account 
here  given  of  it — an  account  I  have  striven  to 
make  accurate,  often  hy  reproducing  the  very 
language  of  the  original.  The  next  considera- 
tion is,  whether  an  unprejudiced  seeker  after 
truth  can  rest  in  Darwin's  theory  as  a  satisfac- 
tory philosophy  of  morals. 

One  thing  must  be  stated  at  the  outset.  Dar- 
win's treatment  of  the  phenomena  of  morals  dif- 
fers essentially,  not  only  from  his  treatment  of  the 
phenomena  of  life,  but  also  from  his  treatment  of 
the  phenomena  of  intelligence.  Nor  is  the  con- 
trast difficult  to  explain.  Life,  as  all  admit,  is 
common  to  man  and  the  animals ;  and,  as  Dar- 
win adduced  grounds  for  believing,  there  is  no 
fundamental  difference  between  human  and  ani- 
mal intelligence.  Now,  if  Darwin's  aim  was  to 
break  down  the  wall  of  partition  which  unscien- 


I  *f^  Darwin  s  Ethical  Method  Unique, 


I  \ 


tific  dogma  had  erected  between  the  various  species 
of  living  beings,  it  was  not  necessary  for  him  to 
inquire  into  the  absolute  beginning  of  life  or  of 
intelligence  ;  and,  as  we  have  already  seen,  this 
problem  he  specifically  set  aside.  It  sufficed  for 
his  purpose  that  human  and  other  animals  were 
alive  and  intelligent,  however  they  may  have  be- 
come so ;  and  the  only  question  he  set  himself 
was  i'low,  beginning  with  the  lower  forms,  the  ad- 
vance in  physical  and  psycliical  organization  had 
been  effected.  But  even  to  this  restricted  ques- 
tion his  answer  is,  as  we  have  found,  a  mixture  of 
science  and  nescience.  By  far  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  the  process  of  evolution  is  veiled 
in  inscrutable  mystery.  The  development  from 
lower  to  higher  life  and  intelligence  has  not  been 
sudden,  but  gradual,  we  are  told ;  yet  we  i.o  more 
comprehend  the  cause  of  the  one  than  of  the  oth- 
er, and  ultimately  fall  back  upon  a  belief  that  it 
is  because  organisms  have  innate  tendencies  to 
vary.  But  that  assumed^  everything  is  assumed  ; 
for  natural  selection,  which  Darwin  discovered,  is 
only  the  name  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest  among 
all  those  forms  which  nature  so  mysteriously 
flings  forth.  What  Darwin,  therefore,  maintains 
of  organization  and  intelligence  amounts  only  to 
this :  given  the  lower  phases,  there  is  somehow 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         177 

a  progress  to  higher  phases,  tlie  best  of  which 
natural  selection  is  constantly  preserving.  But 
in  the  moral  world  he  finds  no  such  common 
starting-point.  He  does  not  pretend  that  the 
phenomena  of  conscience,  like  those  of  life  and 
mind,  are  alike  exhibited  by  man  and  brute. 
Had  he  done  so,  he  might  here,  too,  have  con- 
tented himself  with  the  assertion  of  a  develop- 
ment from  the  one  to  the  other  by  means  of 
natural  selection,  leaving  the  essence  of  the  pro- 
cess as  mysterious  as  he  left  it  in  the  case  of 
life  or  mind.  And  to  this  assertion,  were  it  snp- 
ported  by  analogous  facts,  no  one  could  have 
objected  who  accepts  his  theory  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  life.  The  germ,  he  might  have  said, 
however  it  originated,  somehow  grows  into  the 
various  forms  of  animal  conscience,  and  at  last 
culminates  in  the  conscience  of  man ;  and  the 
distance  between  the  moral  sense  of  the  high- 
est animal  and  the  lowest  man,  he  might  have 
repeated,  is  not  greater  than  that  between  the 
lamprey  and  the  dog.  Unfortunately,  however, 
for  the  consistency  of  this  scheme,  he  finds  no 
animal  conscience.  With  the  recognition  of  that 
blank,  one  might  suppose  the  author  of  the  theory 
of  natural  selection,  with  his  habitual  caution, 

would  venture  no  farther.     But  the  combined  in- 
12 


n    1 


i 


.( 


178       Unlike  his  Scientific  Method. 

fluence  of  an  inlierited  empirical  psychology  and 
ethics  and  a  newly  discovered  evolutionary  biology 
proved  too  fascinating  even  for  the  cautious,  fact- 
revering  Darwin.  Since  there  is  no  animal  con- 
science to  begin  with,  and  since  man's  has  to  be 
"  accounted  for, "  one  must  be  manufactured  as  its 
antecedent.  Darwin  accordingly  takes  sociability, 
\rhieh  is  common  to  man  and  beast,  as  one  ele- 
ment, and  for  the  other  element,  high  intelligence, 
which  is  peculiar  to  man  ;  and  from  their  combi- 
nation, by  a  kind  of  psychological  chemistry,  gets 
you  a  primitive  conscience.  Elsewhere  the  fa- 
mous scientist  lay£  before  you  different  species 
with  their  intervening  forms,  many  of  which  he 
has  himself  actually  produced ;  and  from  a  sur- 
vey of  all  the  facts  concludes  there  is  no  absolute 
distinction  between  them.  But  here  he  treats 
you  to  an  imaginary  psychology — imaginary  facts 
and  imaginary  processes,  which  have  no  other 
warrant  than  his  own  preconception  of  the  deriv- 
ative character  of  the  moral  faculty.  The  sure- 
footed investigator  here  roams  at  random  over 
an  impalpable  void  that  offers  no  foothold  ;  and 
soaring  in  his  flight,  you  may  follow,  but  cannot 
catch  him.  He  has  deserted  the  kingdom  of  fact, 
which  no  mortal  had  ever  half  so  well  mastered, 
and,  in  an  incautious  moment,  embarked  upon  the 


\\ 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         1 79 


and 

logy 
Eact- 
con- 

0  be 
its  its 

ility, 

1  ele- 
ence, 
)mbi- 
,get8 
le  fa- 
pecies 
ch  he 
a  8ur- 
Bolute 

reats 
facts 
other 
deriv- 
Bure- 
over 
;  and 
cannot 
f  fact, 
stered, 
on  the 


barren  seas  of  specnlation,  with  all  their  shoals 
and  quicksands,  "  where  armies  whole  have  sunk.'* 
This  departure,  in  the  case  of  morals,  from  the 
scientific  method  of  the  '*  Origin  of  Species "  is 
certainly  very  remarkable,  though  no  one,  so  far 
as  I  know,  has  ever  called  attention  to  it.  Had 
Darwin,  I  repeat,  treated  conscience  as  he  treated 
the  mental  faculties,  there  would  have  been  no 
ground  of  complaint.  His  mental  philosophy  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  statement  that  the  various 
grades  of  intelligence  shade  into  one  another  so 
imperceptibly  that  it  is  not  possible  to  distinguish 
them  absolutely,  even  at  the  point  where  the  ani- 
mal differentiates  into  the  human  mind — an  inter- 
val which,  moreover,  is  not  greater  than  that 
between  the  intelligence  of  the  fislx  and  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  elephant.  This  may  or  may  not  be 
a  tenable  contention  ;  but  it  is  at  least  supported 
by  facts,  and  so  amenable  to  refutation.  It  seems 
to  me  false  from  omissions  rather  than  in  the  po- 
sitions it  specifies.  For,  supposing  the  difPerence 
between  the  canine  or  simian  mind  and  the  mind  of 
a  savage  to  be  no  greater  than  the  theory  requires, 
there  is,  nevertheless,  a  pertinent  distinction  too 
significant  to  be  passed  over  in  silence — the  one  is 
capable  of  appropriating  the  accumulated  knowl- 
edge, culture,  and  civilization  of  the  most  ad- 


'I 


180  Human  and  Brute  Mind  Different 

vanced  spirits ;  the  other  is  not.  This  capacity 
for  developnent  should  count  for  something  in 
framing  a  genealogical  table.  And  that  I  have 
not  overestimated  it  is  evidenced  by  the  uncon- 
scious testimony  of  Darwin,  who,  speaking  of  the 
Fuegians  as  the  *'  lowest  barbarians,"  yet  adds : 
"I  was  continually  struck  with  surprise  how 
closely  the  three  natives  on  board  H.  M.  S. 
Beagle,  who  had  lived"  some  years  in  England 
and  could  talk  a  little  English,  resembled  us  in 
disposition  and  in  most  of  our  mental  faculties." 
As  he  is,  the  native  Fuegian  may  not  be  much 
more  intelligent  than  an  elephant ;  but  then,  he 
is  capahle  of  becoming  so  much  more  I 

Still,  whether  Darwin  is  right  or  wrong  in  this 
matter  does  not  now  concern  us.  My  present 
point  is,  that  in  his  mental  philosophy  he  makes 
no  attempt  to  derive  any  of  the  mental  powers. 
He  takes  them  as  he  finds  them,  and  studies  their 
different  manifestations  and  gradations.  Man  has 
more  reason  than  the  monkey :  Darwin  notes  the 
fact  without  pretending  to  explain  whence  that 
reason  came  or  what  the  essence  of  reason  is. 
The  lancelet  has  no  imagination ;  the  dog  has : 
Darwin  recognizes  the  appearance  of  a  new  power 
in  the  more  developed  animal  without  professing 
to  account  for  its  entrance  upon  the  field.    Had 


mt 

oacity 
ing  in 
'.  have    . 
Qiicon- 
of  the 
adds : 
ie  how 
M.  S. 
England 
i  lis  in 
sulties." 
e  much 
then,  he 

in  this 
present 
le  makes 
powers, 
ies  their 
Man  has 
lotes  the 
mce  that 
eason  is. 
dog  has: 
ew  power 
rofessing 

d.    Had 


Darwin  %  Ethical  Theory,         i8i 

he  in  the  same  way  disclaimed  any  knowledge  of 
the  origin  and  the  essence  of  conscience  (whether 
taking  it  for  a  uniquely  human  endowment  or 
not)  his  moral  philosophy  would  have  had  the 
same  scientific  character  as  his  mental  philosophy. 
Whether  he  held  that  the  moral  faculty  first  ap- 
peared  in  man  or  germinated  in  some  lower  ani- 
mal, his  position  would  he  of  the  nature  of  a  sci- 
entific hypothesis  which  could  he  adjudged  hy 
the  facts.  But  when,  in  violation  of  his  own  in- 
variable practice  elsewhere,  he  here  professes  to 
show  us  the  non-moral  material  out  of  which  the 
moral  faculty  was  manufactured,  and  the  very 
process  of  its  making,  we  cannot  resist  the  sus- 
picion that  he  has  fallen  upon  the  vain  problem 
of  trying,  as  Lotzo  put  it,  to  find  out  how  exist- 
ence was  made. 

This  attempted  derivation  of  the  moral  faculty 
by  Darwin  has,  it  will  now  be  seen,  no  connection, 
either  in  matter  or  in  method,  with  that  biologi- 
cal science  which  is  often  designated  Darwinism. 
We  must  distinguish,  henceforth,  between  Dar- 
win the  ethical  speculator  and  Darwin  the  ob- 
server and  intei'preter  of  facts  in  natural  history. 
The  lack  of  this  distinction  has  led  to  endless  con- 
fusion. Naturalists  have  supposed  that  Darwin's 
biology  carried  with  it  his  theory  of  conscience, 


sasta 


182 


Conscience  Inderivable. 


while  moralists,  repudiating  the  latter,  thought 
thej  were  called  upon  to  demolish  Darwinian 
i^cience.  What  a  chaos  of  absurd  disputation  has 
been  thus  engendered,  the  Darwinian  literature 
of  the  last  generation  too  abundantly  evinces. 
These  fruitless  contentions  arise  from  a  miscon- 
ceptior  which  is  clearly  evident  in  the  light  of 
the  preceding  chapters.  That  mass  of  fact  and 
theory  which  naturalists  ^nd  moralists  have  im^ 
ag'ned  unitary  is  really  twofold,  with  two  distinct 
centres  of  gravity.  Without  maintaining,  in  gen- 
eral, in  opposition  to  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  that 
biology  has  nothing  to  do  with  ethics  or  ethics 
with  biology  (though  this  is  not  incapable  of  de- 
monstration), we  do  assert  with  the  greatest  con- 
fidence that,  even  if  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin 
of  species  and  descent  of  man  is  sound,  his  specu- 
lations on  morals  will  not,  therefore,  be  sustained 
or  confirmed,  since  the  two  rest  on  wholly  dif- 
ferent bases,  which  are  at  no  point  coincident,  and 
which  no  reasoning  can  bring  together. 

The  absolutely  unique  treatment  which  ethical 
phenomena  received  at  the  hands  of  Darwin  may 
be  still  further  illustrated  in  yet  another  way.  It 
has  been  shown  already  that,  in  his  own  province 
of  natural  history,  Darwin  makes  no  attempt  to 
deiive  that  life  whose  mysteriously  expanding 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         183 

pliascs  he  seeks  to  arrange  in  a  graduated  scale. 
But  besides  mere  life  there  is  spirit,  with  its 
powers  of  apprehending  the  trne,  the  good,  and 
the  beautiful.  And  with  regard  to  those  mental 
powers  which,  conversing  with  reality,  seize  upon 
the  truth,  we  have  found  Darwin  registering 
their  progressive  manifestations  without  any  pre- 
tence of  accounting  for  their  origin.  The  logical 
faculty,  the  mathematical  faculty,  he  accepts  as 
ultimate  facts  ;  and  whether  they  are  comparable 
with  animal  activities  or  not,  he  recognizes  the 
futility  of  pretending  to  show  how  they  came 
into  being.  The  same  holds  of  his  treatment  of 
the  sense  of  the  beautiful.  Without  attempting 
a  genesis  of  the  aesthetic  faculty,  he  contents  him- 
self with  observing,  among  animals  in  all  stages 
of  development,  actual  instances  of  perception 
of  the  beautiful.  And  a  wonderful  collection  of 
facts  he  makes,  as  fascinating  as  novel  and  fresh  I 
The  observations  constitute  the  decisive  moment 
in  his  theory  of  sexual  selection.  As  natural  se- 
lection turns  upon  the  success  of  both  sexes  in  the 
struggle  for  life,  sexual  selection  depends  upon 
the  success  of  certain  individuals  over  others  of 
the  same  sex  in  relation  to  the  propagation  of  the 
species.  Among  nearly  all  animals  there  is  a 
struggle  between  the  males  for  the  possession  of 


J«B 


I    II 


1 . 


mm 


184     Sense  of  Beauty  Left  Ultimate, 

the  females.  The  slightest  favorable  variation 
would  enp^^.a  the  victorious  possessor  to  propagate 
it,  be  it  a  modification  adapted  to  destroy  rival 
wooers  or  to  win  the  coveted  female.  To  the 
first  class  belong  those  weapons  of  offence  *.nd  de- 
fence— the  courage  and  pugnacity,  the  superior 
strength  and  build — ^in  which  most  males  differ 
from  the  females.  Still  more  interesting  is  the 
second  class.  For  courtsjiip  among  the  lower  an- 
imals is  far  from  being  simply  a  matter  of  brute 
force.  The  females  appear  to  have  much  more 
freedom  of  choice  than  the  women  of  the  lowest 
races  of  mankind.  The  male,  therefore,  has  not 
only  to  cc  iquer  his  rivals,  but  to  win  the  female. 
And  the  female,  such  is  the  animal  sense  of 
beauty,  is  most  excited  by,  or  prefers  pairing  with, 
the  more  ornamental  male,  or  the  male  which 
sings  best  or  plays  the  best  antics.  Hence,  in  a 
state  of  nature,  the  females  by  a  long  selection  of 
the  more  attractive  males  have  gradually  added 
to  their  beauty  or  other  attractive  qualities.  And 
Darwin  shows  in  a  most  ingenious  manner  how, 
owing  to  female  susceptibility  to  beauty,  the 
charms  of  the  males  of  the  most  different  orders 
and  species  have  been  acquired  through  sexual  se- 
lection. His  illustrations  fill  a  volume,  but  none 
of  them  are  more  delightful  than  those  refer- 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         185 


3,  in  a 


ring  to  the  ornaments  of  male  birds — their  brill- 
iat'  tails,  their  combs  and  wattles,  their  gorsreous 
plumes,  their  elongated  feathers,  their  top-knots, 
and  so  forth. 

There  is  no  need,  however,  of  here  following 
farther  Darwin's  theory  of  sexnal  selection.  It 
is  alone  with  the  animal  sense  of  the  beautiful, 
on  which  the  theory  restfc;  that  we  are  now  con- 
cerned. That  faculty,  be  it  observed,  Darwin  ac- 
cepts as  he  finds  it,  ready-made  ;  his  task  is  merely 
to  trace  its  operations  in  the  various  orders  of  as- 
cending life.  What  may  be  the  nature  and  the 
source  of  the  psychical  organization  that  enables 
beings  to  perceive  the  beautiful,  Darwin  no  more 
considers  than  the  cognate  question  concerning 
the  powers  that  apprehend  the  true.  But  when  he 
treats  of  the  faculty  that  discerns  the  good,  **.«., 
conscience,  he  undertakes  to  show  us  whence  it 
came  and  how  it  was  made  !  This  unique  inno- 
vation in  method  is  tantamount  to  a  transition 
from  science  to  speculation. 

Darwin's  conjectural  ethics,  then,  we  may  now 
conclude,  is  wholly  unsupported  by  his  observa- 
tional biology. 

The  next  question  is.  How  does  the  theory 
accord  with  the  facts  ?  Surrendering  the  nnde- 
served  prestige  they  have  hitherto  enjoyed  from 


i 


M  ' 


1 86  Meaning  of  Conscience, 

association,  through  an  illustrious  name,  with 
evolutionary  science,  are  the  ethical  speculations 
of  Darwin  in  themselves  tenable  ?  To  answering 
this  question  the  rest  of  the  present  chapter  must 
be  devoted. 

The  centre  of  gravity  of  Darwin's  hypothesis 
is  the  assertion  that  conscience  is  the  product  of 
well-marked  social  instincts  and  advanced  intel- 
ligence. Given  these, "  any  animal  whatever,"  so 
he  tells  us,  "  would  inevitably  acquire  a  moral 
sense,  or  conscience."  This  proposition  we  have 
now  to  examine.  We  want  to  understand  how 
and  why  conscience  is  begotten  of  intellect  and 
sociability. 

Conscience,  as  popularly  conceived,  is  a  term 
of  somewhat  vague  signification.  It  comprises 
intellectual  and  emotional  phenomena,  standing 
at  once  for  the  power  that  discovers  and  enforces 
the  good  and  avenges  its  violation  or  rewards  its 
observance.  It  is  aptly  described,  in  Butler's  fe- 
licitous confusion,  as  a  sentiment  of  the  under- 
standing and  a  perception  of  the  heart.  But  what 
common-sense  thus  unites,  analytic  philosophers 
have  disjoined.  One  school  holds  that  conscience 
has  a  purely  intellectual  function,  the  recognition 
of  moral  law ;  another  insists  it  is  notJaing  but 
feeling,  a  pain  more  or  less  intense  attendant  on 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory.         187 

violation  of  duty.  It  matters  little  in  what  sense 
this  or  any  other  term  is  used  in  philosophical 
literature,  provided  only  the  definition  be  given, 
though  there  is  a  manifest  advantage  in  keeping 
as  close  as  possible  to  popular  usage.  What  is 
of  importance  is  that  in  fixing  the  connotation  of 
words  the  thi  gs  to  be  named  shall  not  be  over> 
looked.  And  that  all  the  moral  phenomena  re- 
ferred  by  the  vulgar  to  conscience  actually  exist 
will  not  be  questioned  by  any  thinker  (whatever 
his  definition  of  the  word  conscience)  who  has 
ever  perceived  one  course  of  action  to  be  right 
and  another  wrong,  who  has  recognized  the  au- 
thority of  the  right  over  him,  and  who,  on  defy- 
ing the  right  and  choosing  the  wrong,  has  ex- 
perienced the  pangs  of  remorse. 

As  Darwin  supplies  us  with  a  theory  of  the 
genesis  of  conscience,  it  is  necessary  to  determine 
what  he  means  by  that  term.  Is  the  function  of 
the  Darwinian  conscience  the  perception  of  right 
and  wrong,  or  the  recognition  of  the  authority  of 
the  right,  or  the  remorse  that  follows  upon  vio- 
lation of  that  authority?  Is  it  any  or  all  of 
these? 

To  this  question  I  find  it  difficult  to  obtain  a 
definitive  answer.  Darwin  was  a  naturalist ;  and 
the  natural  sciences  of  which  he  was  master  do 


11  I 


'  fii 


1 88     Ambiguities  of  Darwifi s  Usage, 

not  stand  in  need  of  snch  precise  definitions  as 
the  more  complex  sciences  of  mind.  Besides,  for 
all  but  experts,  definitions  of  mental  phenomena 
are  exceedingly  difficult  to  frame.  Perhaps  we 
may  thus  explain  the  ambiguity  in  Darwin's  use 
of  the  term  conscifc.ice.  In  the  fourth  chapter 
of  "  The  Descent  of  Man "  we  are  told,  in  tlio 
opening  sentences,  that  "  the  moral  sense,  or  con- 
science, .  .  .  has  a  lightful  suprcmac;^  over 
every  other  principle  of  human  action ;  it  is 
summed  up  in  that  short  but  imperious  word 
ought^  so  full  of  high  significance. "  But  in  a  later 
passage  we  hear  "  of  the  moral  sense,  which  tella 
us  what  we  ought  to  do,  and  of  the  conscience, 
which  reproves  us  if  we  disobey  it."  Further, 
conscience  is  described  as  an  '^  inward  monitor " 
urging  towards  ^'one  impulse  rather  than  the 
other,"  and  again,  in  the  same  paragraph,  as  a 
"  feeling  of  right  or  wrong."  To  complete  the 
confusion  it  is  once  more  coupled  with  remorse ; 
and  the  man  who  has  been  visited  with  this  ret- 
ribution will,  according  to  Darwin,  "  consequently 
resolve  more  or  less  firmly  to  act  differently  for 
the  future ;  and  this  is  conscience,  for  conscience 
looks  backwards  and  serves  as  a  guide  for  the 
future." 
No  logic,  I  apprehend,  can  extract  from  these 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         189 


these 


descriptions  a  consistent  definition  of  conscience. 
Yet,  without  it  how  are  we  to  test  Darwin's  the- 
ory of  the  origin  of  conscience  ?  One  way  is  still 
open.  Though  we  are  unable  to  determine  from 
Darwin's  statements  the  character  of  the  phe- 
nomenon to  be  produced,  he  yet  furnishes  us  with 
the  elements  and  the  process  of  its  production. 
These  we  may  study  in  the  expectation  of  dis- 
covering the  nature  of  their  result.  Given  socia- 
bility and  intelligence  as  generating  factors  of 
a>  ("  conscience  "),  the  problem  is  to  find  x,  I 
repeat,  we  ought  to  know  what  is  mean*,  by  con- 
science, since  this  is  the  phenomenon  whose 
genesis  we  seek ;  but,  failing  that,  nothing  re- 
mains but  to  assume  the  agencies  and  operations 
posited  by  Darwin,  and  then  examine  what  they 
can  produce  and  what  they  are  incapable  of  pro- 
ducing. 

Turning  to  the  famous  chapter  already  men- 
tioned for  Darwin's  account  of  the  subject,  we 
learn  there  is  a  "  main  point,  on  which  .  .  . 
the  whole  question  of  the  moral  sense  turns. 
Why  should  a  man  feel  that  he  ought  to  obey  one 
instinctive  desire  rather  than  another?  .  .  . 
Wliy  does  he  regret  having  stolen  food  from 
hunger  ? " 

This  problem  presents  no  peculiar  difiiculty  to 


ll^ 


':i 


I  ! 


190 


Genesis  of  Conscience, 


anybody  not  pledged  to  a  system  of  derivative 
morality.  The  answer  is  simple  enongli.  Man 
perceives  some  desires  to  be  higher  or  nobler  than 
others,  he  recognizes  an  obligation  to  admit  the 
better  and  exclude  the  worse,  and  he  cannot  defy 
this  authority  without  incurring  the  penalty  of 
remorse.  Admit  there  is  a  scale  of  worth  and 
authority  among  our  impulses  to  conduct,  as  well 
as  an  order  of  intensity,  aiid  the  whole  difficulty 
vanishes.  This,  however,  is  what  our  current 
evolutionary  school,  for  reasons  more  conceiv- 
able than  cogent,  has  persistently  declined  to  do. 
The  undeniable  deliverances  of  consciousness  are 
in  some  way  to  be  "accounted  for,"  as  though 
you  could  explain  why  the  whole  is  greater  than 
its  part,  or  twice  two  four,  or  benevolence  more 
excellent  than  envy  1 

Let  us  consider  Darwin's  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem he  has  raised :  "Why  does  man  regret  that 
he  has  followed  one  natural  impulse  rather  than 
another  ? " 

In  all  such  cases,  according  to  Darwin,  regret 
is  the  concomitant  of  a  violation  of  the  social  in- 
stincts on  the  part  of  the  selfish  instincts.  It  can- 
not be  due  to  the  greater  strength  of  the  former, 
for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  social  instincts  in  man 
are  not  stronger  than  the  instincts  of  self-preser- 


Darwin* s  Ethical  Theory,         191 

vation,  hnnger,  e^c;  and  were  they  Btronger,  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  liow  they  could  ever  have  been 
overpowered  by  the  weaker.  But "  the  social  in- 
stincts are  ever  present  and  persistent."  And  a 
being  with  mental  faculties  as  high  as  man's  can- 
not avoid  reflecting  upon  past  actions  and  motives, 
and  comparing  the  s-'tisfaction  of  hunger,  ven- 
geance, etc.,  at  other  men's  cost,  with  the  almost 
ever  present  instinct  of  sympathy,  which  "  forms 
an  essential  purt  of  the  social  instinct,  and  is  in- 
deed its  foundation-stone."  Now,  such  desires  as 
hunger,  vengeance,  and  the  like,  are  in  their  nat- 
ure of  short  duration  ;  and  after  being  satisfied, 
are  not  vividly  recalled.  Hence,  when  the  images 
of  these  past  and  now  weakened  impressions  are 
compared  with  the  ever  enduring  social  instincts, 
and  with  public  opinion,  the  thief,  or  avenger,  will 
feel  as  if  he  had  been  balked  in  following  a  pres- 
ent instinct  or  habit,  and  find  himself  the  prey  of 
remorse,  regret,  or  shame. 

It  is  not  conscience,  therefore,  as  popularly 
understood,  but  only  remorse,  whose  genesis  Dar- 
win is  really  tracing.  Does  he  succeed  even  in 
this  limited  endeavor  ? 

The  plausibility  of  the  deduction  is  due  to  the 
assumption  that  *'the  social  instincts  are  ever 
present  and  persistent,"  while  hunger,  vengeance, 


192  Fallacious  Assumption* 

lust,  etc.,  are  not.  What  Darwin  maintains  about 
these  last  impulses  is  psychologically  true :  they 
may  be  readily  and  completely  gratified,  and  nei- 
ther the  attendant  pains  nor  pleasures  are  sus- 
ceptible of  vivid  representation  in  consciousness. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  influence  upon  the 
individual  of  the  social  organism  or  social  factor 
seems  scarcely  capable  of  exaggeration  to  those 
who  have  taken  to  heari;  the  teachings  of  Herder 
and  the  great  German  thinkers  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  or  of  Comte,  Mill,  and  Lewes  in  the 
nineteenth.  Nevertheless,  when  the  social  prin- 
ciples of  conduct  are  enumerated  one  by  one,  no 
one  would  venture  to  assert  that  compassion,  be- 
nevolence, gratitude,  justice,  veracity,  or  humanity, 
is  an  "  ever  present  aiid  persistent  instinct. "  Man 
is  moved  both  by  egoistic  ar  i  altruistic  springs  of 
action,  and  no  psychology  would  imitate  the  Dar- 
winian irony  of  making  the  latter  the  more  en- 
during. On  the  contrary,  as  in  the  Darwinian 
theory,  the  instinct  of  self -preservation  comes 
earliest ;  and  as  the  filial,  parental,  and  social  in- 
stincts are  derived  from  it  by  means  of  natural 
selection ;  there  would  be  groun  ^s  for  maintain- 
ing that  the  one  omnipresent  and  persistent  im- 
pulse is  the  egoistic  one  of  self-preservation.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  only  through  the  illicit  comparison 


Darwin  s  Ethical  Theory,         193 


about 
,  they 
d  nei- 

e  BUB- 
iBUeBB. 

yci  the 
factor 
►  those 
Herder 
liteenth 
in  the 
al  prin- 
one,  no 
3ion,  he- 
imanity, 
"    Man 
)ring8  of 
the  Dar- 
tiore  en- 
arwinian 
11  comes 
Bocial  in- 
natural 
naintain- 
stent  im- 
;ion.    At 
mparison 


of  one  whole  class  with  some  of  the  indi/oidudU 
composing  another  that  Darwin  wins  a  primacy 
for  the  social  instincts.  Compare  compassion  or 
gratitude  with  lust  or  hunger,  and  you  would  not 
say  that  the  individual  social  impulse  is  more  per- 
sistent or  enduring  than  the  individual  selfish 
impulse ;  or  compare  the  whole  class  of  social  in- 
stincts with  the  whole  class  of  selfish  instincts, 
and,  again,  you  find  no  difference  in  the  times  of 
their  presence  or  persistency.  Take,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  entire  species  of  social  instincts  and 
only  two  or  three  individuals  from  the  selfish 
group,  and,  of  course,  you  may  predicate  of  the 
former  a  more  constant  presence  and  greater  per- 
sistency. It  is,  now,  by  this  utterly  fallacious 
procedure  that  Darwin  gains  the  fundamental 
proposition  in  his  deduction  of  the  moral  sense 
(that  is,  as  we  have  seen,  remorse).  Instead  of 
granting  that  the  social  instincts  exclusively  are 
ever  present  and  persistent,  we  must  maintain 
they  have  no  title  to  those  predicates  which  can- 
not be  urged  with  equal  or  greater  validity  on 
behalf  of  the  selfish  instincts. 

But  even  if  Darwin's  assumption  that  the  social 
instincts  are  ever  present  aad  persistent  were  con- 
ceded, it  would  not  enabie  him  to  educe  con- 
science or  remorse.    For,  suppose  these  instincts 
13 


194         .     Further  Objection, 

located  in  a  being  of  high  mental  powers — and 
that  is  all  the  theory  postulates — what  is  there 
to  carry  the  non-moral  possessor  over  into  the 
status  of  a  moral  agent  ?  Evolutionists  of  the 
current  school  are  apt  to  slur  over  this  step,  and 
the  hiatus  is  not  observed  by  their  readers  be- 
cause, for  the  most  part,  they  fail  to  realize  that 
the  moral  has  here  been  made  to  emerge,  not  from 
an  antecedent  kindred  ^erm,  but  from  the  ab- 
solutely non-moral.  When  Darwin  tells  them 
that  a  highly  intelligent  being,  reflecting  upon  the 
past  triumphs  of  lust,  vengeance,  or  hunger,  over 
more  benevolent  impulses,  cannot  escape  the  bit- 
terness of  remorse  or  shame,  they  assent  to  the 
proposition  as  expressing  a  fact  of  their  own  ex- 
perience.  But  they  overlook  the  all-important 
difference  that  they  are  already  moral  beings,  and 
that  the  highly  intelligent  animal  Darwin  speaks 
of  is  not.  Why,  then,  should  this  non-moral  in- 
telligence experience  remorse?  The  selfish  in- 
stinct of  hunger  or  lust  had  its  way  only  because 
it  was  at  the  time  stronger  than  the  social  check. 
And  in  this  superior  intensity  a  reflecting,  non- 
moral  being  could  not  fail  to  find  its  justification. 
Had  the  more  powerful  impulse  been  restrained, 
there  would  have  arisen  (to  appropriate  language 
of  Darwin's)  ^^  that  feeling  of  dissatisfaction,  or 


Darwin's  Ethical  Theory,         195 


eve 

the 

the 

and 
be- 
that 

Erom 

>  ab- 

them 

nthe 

,  over 

le  hit- 

to  the 

pu  ex- 

ortant 

;8,  and 
pealss 
ral  in- 
sh  in- 
ecause 
check, 
non- 
cation, 
rained, 
gnage 
ion,  or 


even  misery,  which  invariably  reenlts  from  any 
unsatisfied  instinct."  And  as  this  misery  is  pro- 
portionate to  the  intensity  of  the  impnise  sup- 
pressed— greater  when  this  is  stronger,  lighter 
when  it  is  weaker — every  reflecting  being,  unin- 
fluenced by  moral  considerations,  and  governed, 
therefore,  only  by  a  Benthamite  calculus  of  pleas- 
ures and  pains,  would  be  driven  to  the  inevitable 
conclusion,  that  true  wisdom  consisted  in  fol- 
lowing the  strongest  impulse  (except  when  it 
might  entail  a  future  balance  of  pain — a  con- 
tingency rarer  for  non-moral  than  for  moral 
beings).  The  case  may  be  represented  as  fol- 
lows :  At  a  certain  moment  in  the  past,  a  selfish 
instinct,  being  stronger  than  a  social  instinct,  was 
gratified  by  the  corresponding  conduct,  and  pro- 
duced a  clear  surplus  of  pleasure  over  the  pain  at- 
tendant upon  the  violation  of  the  weaker  social 
instinct;  had  the  latter  been  satisfied  to  the 
suppression  of  the  former,  there  would,  for  the 
same  reason,  have  been  a  surplus  of  pain  over 
pleasure.  Tins  actual  state  of  things,  now,  can- 
not be  altered  by  the  most  arduous  reflection  upon 
it.  Hence  those  images  of  past  actions  and 
motives  which,  according  to  Darwin,  incessantly 
pass  through  the  minds  of  highly  intelligent  ani- 
mals must,  so  far  as  this  particular  case  is  con- 


r 


196 


No  Escape  From  It, 


:.l     i 


cerned,  generate  a  pleasurable  consciousness  akin 
to  that  formerly  produced  by  the  remembered 
events  themselves. 

The  non-moral  intelligent  being,  then,  that 
followed  the  strongest  impulse,  be  it  an  egoistic 
or  an  altruistic  impulse,  would  have  the  best 
reasons  for  self-gratulation.  One  consideration, 
however,  as  ahvsady  hinted,  might  suffice  to  give 
him  pause.  The  strong^t  instinct,  though  pro- 
ducing the  most  pleasure  momentarily  by  its 
gratification,  might  not  produce  the  greatest  sur- 
plus of  permanent  pleasure.  And  if  so,  this 
would  be  a  reason  for  a  non-moral  being  sup- 
pressing it.  But  Darwin  makes  no  such  supposi- 
tion ;  nor  would  it  in  the  least  serve  his  purpose. 
For  his  problem  is  to  generate  conscience,  and  he 
rightly  saw  that,  though  a  non-moral  being  who 
preferred  a  momentary  to  a  permanent  pleasure 
iniglit,  on  reflection,  deem  himself  short-sighted, 
imprudent,  or  even  foolish,  such  a  being  could  have 
no  experience  of  that  heart-breaking  emotion  of 
remorse  which  Darwin  identifies  with  conscience. 

Darwin  makes  remorse  the  concomitant  of  the 
recollection  of  suppressed  socid  instincts  ;  yet  in 
the  results,  actual  or  possible,  entailed  by  the 
suppression  we  fiud  no  ground  for  remorse,  while 
as  regards  the  act  of  suppression,  due  as  it  was 


Darwifts  Ethical  Theory,         197 


akin 
>ered 

that 
;oi8tic 

best 
ation, 
ogive 
li  pro- 
by  its 
}8t  sur- 
io,  this 
Qg  snp- 
upposi- 
mrpose. 

and  be 
ng  who 

>leasure 
[sighted, 

lid  have 

^otion  of 

iscience. 

it  of  the 
;  yet  in 
by  the 

ie,  while 
kB  it  was 


to  the  pleasure-giving  triumph  of  a  selfish  in- 
stinct, we  have  seen  that  a  non-moral  being,  re- 
flecting upon  it,  could  have  no  other  feeling  than 
self-complacency.    But  (it  will  be  objected)  the 
non-moral  being  who  formerly  gave  way  to  sel- 
fishness is  supposed  by  Darwin  to  be,  at  the 
moment  of  reflection,  under  the  influence  of  the 
ever  present  and  persistent  social  instincts  and 
sympathies ;  and  it  is  in  their  reinstalled  light 
that  the  former  outburst  of  egoism  now  appears 
shameful  and  fills  the  reflectiuj;;  agent  with  re- 
morse.     This  supposition,  which  is   manifestly 
borrowed  from  the  experiences  of  a  moral  being, 
presupposes  one   of   two  conditions,  either  of 
which  is  absolutely  destructive  to  the  ethical  hy- 
pothesis of  Darwin.     If  reflection  upon  violated 
social  instincts  could  engender  such  sentiments  in 
a  non-moral  intelligence,  either  the  reflection  is 
very  inadequate  or  a  worth  is  attributed  to  the 
social  sentiments  hitherto  denied  them   by  the 
theory.      Suppose  the  reflection  thorough  and 
complete,    then   what  avail  the  solicitations  of 
present  sociability  to  color  and  distort  the  images 
reflection  evokes?     A  developed  intellect  will 
not  confound  the  present  with  the  past,  or  fool- 
ishly dream  that,  because  at  this  moment  a  tri- 
umph of  the  social  instincts  would  be  pleasur- 


198        Egoism  versus  Sociability, 


n 


^        n 


\ 


.1 
'Ml! 

I 


able,  it  would  always  have  been  pleasurable  in  the 
past.  It  could  not  but  recall  that  just  as  at  pres- 
ent the  social  impulses  happen  to  be  dominant,  so 
at  other  times  hunger,  vengeance,  and  lust  hap- 
pen to  be  dominant ;  and  to  slip  the  one  force  is 
as  natural  and  as  praiseworthy,  from  this  non- 
moral  point  of  view,  as  to  slip  the  other.  But 
the  social  instincts,  says  Darwin,  are  more  present 
and  enduring  than  the  setfish  instincts.  Even  if 
this  contention,  which  I  have  already  adduced 
grounds  for  rejecting,  be  for  the  moment  con- 
ceded, it  will  not  help  out  the  demonstration. 
For  you  cannot  argue  that  because  selfish  im- 
pulses do  not  come  so  often  or  stay  so  long  as  so- 
cial impulses,  they  have  therefore  less  right  to  the 
field  when  they  actually  do  put  in  an  appearance. 
Granting  that  the  times  of  sociability  are  greater 
than  the  times  of  selfishness,  this  time-measure 
does  not  explain  why  I  feel  remorse  over  acts  of 
vengeance  or  robbery.  And  if  the  meaning  is 
that  I  shed  penitential  tears  over  them  solely  be- 
cause I  am  at  present  transported  by  a  wave  of 
sociability,  this  would  lead  to  the  absurdity  that 
when  the  egoistic  instincts  had  the  upper  hand, 
reflection  would  then  produce  remorse  for  pre- 
vious acts  of  benevolence  and  compassion  involv- 
ing sacrifice  to  myself  I 


Darwin* s  Ethical  Theory,         199 


the 
>re8- 

it,BO 

hap- 
ce  is 
non- 
But 
esent 
ren  if 
iuced 
;  con- 
•ation. 
h  im- 
as  80- 
to  the 
trance, 
rreater 
easure 
acts  of 
ning  is 
ely  be- 
rave  of 
y  that 
hand, 
or  pre- 
involv- 


Thorotigh-going  reflection,  then,  "will  not  gener- 
ate remorse  in  a  being  that  recognizes  no  differ- 
ence in  impulses  to  action  except  degrees  of  dura- 
tion and  intensi  y.  The  Darwinian  hypothetical 
moral  ancestor  does  feel  remorse.  He  must 
therefore  have  already  arrived  at  a  perception  of 
the  relative  worth  of  competing  springs  of  con- 
duct. What  Darwin  calls  the  bocial  impulses  this 
incipient  moral  agent  already  recognizes  as  higher 
and  nobler  than  what  Darwin  calls  the  selfish  im- 
pulses. The  one  has  a  claim  upon  him,  the  other 
has  not.  That  claim,  the  mute  though  awful  ap- 
peal of  goodness  to  a  free  moral  agent,  he  may 
defy ;  but,  unless  his  heart  is  hardened,  that  de- 
tiance  brings  the  terrible  yet  blessed  retribution 
of  remorse.  How  all  this  is  so,  why  all  this  is  so, 
we  know  not.  Voltaire's  words  deserve,  in  these 
days  of  derivative  and  genetic  philosophy,  to 
be  written  in  letters  of  gold :  "  What  inconsist- 
ency! We  know  not  how  the  earth  produces 
a  blade  of  grass,  or  how  the  bones  grow  in  the 
womb  of  her  who  is  with  child,  and  yet  we  would 
persuade  ourselves  that  we  understand  the  nature 
and  generation  of  our  ideas." 

Darwin  attempts  to  derive  remorse  (which  he 
calls  "conscience")  from  measuring  sociability 
against  selfishness  in  the  mind  of  a  non-moral 


al        .♦ 


■!     If 


200  Conscience  presupposed, 

being.  The  derivation,  I  think  we  have  shown, 
is  a  failure.  It  becomes  plausible  only  when  we 
grant,  as  Darwin  does  not,  though  the  reader 
generally  does,  that  our  hypothetical  ancestor  has 
an  intuitive  perception  of  the  superior  excellence 
of  social  over  selfish  instincts.  And  so  it  appears 
that  it  is  this  inderivable  moral  consciousness, 
this  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  this  conscience, 
and  not  any  psychological  play  of  egoistic  and 
altruistic  impulses  to  action,  that  constitates  at 
once  the  possibility  and  the  foundation  of  re- 
morse. Darwin's  derivation  of  it  turns  out  a 
gigantic  ^arepov  irporepov. 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  MORA^  ffiEALS  AND  IN- 
STITUTIONS, WITH  SPECIAL  EEFEBENOE  TO  THE 
FAMILY. 


The  history  of  moral  ideals  and  institntions, 
though  hitherto  ignored  by  moralists,  seems  to 
me  the  most  important  topic  in  the  whole  realm 
of  ethics.  Therein  is  to  be  found,  along  with  a 
fuller  comprehension,  the  solution  of  many  of 
those  vexed  questions  which  have  never  failed  to 
stimulate,  and  have  always  baffled,  the  ingenuity 
of  all  the  schools  of  analytic  philosophers.  To 
have  aroused  interest  in  a  matter  so  significant 
is  no  trifling  addition  to  the  crown  of  Darwin's 
glory.  But  it  was  really  almost  by  accident  that 
Darwin  stumbled  upon  the  subject.  As  Saul,  the 
son  of  Kish,  was  looking  for  his  father's  asses 
when  he  found  a  kingdom,  so  Darwin,  the  epigon 
of  speculative  utilitarianism,  was  casting  about  for 
supports  to  his  more  than  dubious  theory  of  con- 
science when  his  glance  fell  upon  this  vast,  prom- 


■^}^ 


Jii'P' 

if: 


i  i  51 


202 


Darwin  as  Moralist 


ising,  though  yet  uncultivated  domain  of  histori- 
cal ethics.  Indirectly,  indeed,  he  suggested  the 
way  which  a  positive  "  science  "  of  ethics  would 
have  to  follow ;  but  for  himself,  he  remained  an 
ethical  speculator  of  the  old-fashioned  type,  with 
all  the  preconceptions  and  with  the  same  compla- 
cent confidence  o£  the  derivative  school  whose 
traditions  he  liad  inherited.  But  his  procedure ' 
enables  us  to  illustrate,  i«  a  concrete  instance, 
the  difference  between  science  and  speculation 
in  ethics.  The  observation  and  classification  of 
ethical  facts,  whether  manifested  in  the  individ- 
ual or  in  the  race,  constitute  the  business  of  the 
"  science  "  of  ethics ;  all  else  is  hypothesis,  specu- 
lation, fancy.  The  phenomena  of  the  individual 
moral  consciousness,  Darwin  presumably  turned 
over  to  the  writers  of  systematic  text-books ;  and 
the  phenomena  of  the  historical  development  of 
morality  among  mankind  he  drew  upon  only 
to  illustrat6  his  speculations  on  the  origin  of 
conscience — speculations  which  he  followed  his 
school  in  supposing  the  principal  subject-matter 
of  ethics.  From  infection  with  this  speculative 
spirit  evolntionaiy  moralists  have  not  yet  recov- 
ered, and  they  still  put  upon  us  as  "  science  "  con- 
jectures and  phantasies  as  far  removed  from  fact 
as  the  republic  of  Plato  or  the  paradise  of  Mil- 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       203 

ton.  This  must  serve  as  excuse  for  repeating 
here  the  main  condusion  of  our  first  chapter — 
namely,  that  ethics,  if  it  is  to  become  truly  a  sci- 
ence, must  shun  the  path  of  speculation  and  fol- 
low closely  the  historical  method. 

The  citation  of  facts  from  savage  morality, 
though  merely  for  purposes  of  illustration,  consti- 
tutes, I  have  said,  Darwin's  most  worthf ul  contri- 
bution to  morals.  His  specula^' ve  ethics  is,  in- 
deed, generally  supposed  to  be  an  organic  part  of 
that  evolutionarv  science  whose  basis  he  laid  in 
biology  ;  but  it  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding 
chapters  that  Darwinian  biology  is  absolutely  in- 
different to  every  philosophy,  and  has  no  more 
logical  connection  with  the  metaphysical  and  eth- 
ical views  that  liave  been  grafted  upon  it  by  Dar- 
win and  others  than  with  the  opposite  views. 
Further,  it  has  been  shown  that,  in  themselves 
considered,  Darwin's  ethical  speculations,  whether 
judged  by  their  internal  self -consistency  or  their 
adequacy  to  the  external  facts,  are  wholly  unsat- 
isfactory and  untenable.  To  the  arguments  on 
which  these  conclusions  were  based  we  need  not 
here  recur.  But  another  point  remains,  which 
might,  indeed,  be  passed  over  in  a  mere  examiuA- 
tion  of  Darwinism,  but  which,  as  it  is  suggested 
by  Darwin's  appeal  to  savage  morality,  canno^  be 


204 


History  in  Ethics, 


beyond  the  scope  of  our  present  inquiry,  while  it 
is,  besides,  of  such  transcendent  significance  for 
the  future  of  ethics  that  I  could  not  in  any  case 
decide  to  omit  it  altogether.  I  allude  to  the  bear- 
ing of  the  history  of  morality  among  civilized  and 
uncivilized  races  upon  current  systems  of  moral 
philosophy.  What  light  does  our  present  knowl- 
edge of  the  development  of  moral  conceptions, 
ideals,  and  institutions  among  mankind  throw 
upon  that  fundamental  problem  of  ethical  specu- 
lation, the  nature  of  the  moral  law  ? 

This  question,  unfortunately,  has  not  hitherto 
been  considered  in  exclusive  relation  to  the  his- 
torical facts.  As  was  inevitable  from  the  lack  of 
a  positive  science  of  ethics,  founded  upon  the  act- 
ualities of  history  and  of  life,  it  was  prejudged 
by  theoretical  moralists  according  to  the  specula- 
tive standpoints  which  they  happened  to  occupy. 
Kow,  as  all  the  diversities  of  ethical  thought  may 
be  reduced  to  two  main  types,  represented  respec- 
tively by  the  hedopi«4tic  and  the  intuitive  schools, 
the  facts  of  historic  morality  were  forced  into 
the  service  of  these  opposing  systems.  Accord- 
ing to  the  one  party,  they  showed  that  morality, 
in  itself  eternal  and  immutable,  was  universally 
recognized  and  practised  among  men ;  according 
to  the  other  party,  they   confirmed   the  theory 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       205 

that  moral  laws  were  but  the  empirically  estab- 
lished prescripts  for  securing  the  largest  quantum 
of  pleasure  to  the  greatest  number  of  individuals. 
It  may  indeed  be  questioned  whether  historical 
ethics  ever  really  touches,  much  less  confirms,  the 
point  which  either  of  these  parties  has  most  at 
heart.  If  the  main  issue  between  them  turns 
upon  the  question  of  the  chief  end  of  life,  the 
summum  honum,  then  whether  it  is  pleasure,  as 
the  hedonist  assumes,  or  goodness,  as  the  intu- 
itionist  assumes,  cannot,  I  apprehend,  be  deter- 
mined by  a  study  of  the  morals  of  savages  and 
barbarians  any  more  than  by  a  study  of  the 
morals  of  Christians.  And  if  the  issue  turns 
rather  on  the  absoluteness  or  relativity  of  the 
moral  law,  then  if  by  "  absolute  "  is  meant  valid 
for  all  spirits,  human  and  divine,  and  if  by  "  rel- 
ative" is  meant  dependent  upon  circumstances, 
I  do  not  see  how  comparative  morals,  in  this 
case  either,  can  decide  the  controversy.  But  if, 
dropping  these  speculative  puzzles,  we  shift  our 
position  altogether  and  raise  the  simple  induc- 
tive inquiry.  What  acts  have  men  everywhere 
and  at  all  times  considered  right  or  wrong  re- 
spectively, and  what  acts  have  some  considered 
right  or  indifferent  and  others  w^rong  ?  tables  of 
agreement  and  difference  can  be  drawn  up  to 


ill, 

i 


206 


What  it  can  tell  Us, 


»h 


% 


bIiow  what  mankind  at  least  has  regarded  as  the 
essential  content  of  the  moral  law  (and  some  ex- 
planation might  even  be  suggested  of  the  diver- 
gence in  the  outlying  area  beyond  this  common 
circle),  though  we  should  still  be  unable  to  say 
whether  the  end  of  life  was  pleasure  or  some- 
thing else,  or  how  this  common  human  morality 
might  be  regarded  by  other  spirits,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, by  God.  For  the  rich  harvest  which  this 
treatment  of  the  moral  ^eld  is  sure  to  yield  wo 
shall  have  to  wait  until  the  spirit  of  science  has 
exorcised  the  spirit  of  speculation  from  our  con- 
tending schools  of  ethics.  Only  a  single  plot  of 
the  field  has  as  yet  been  cultivated,  and  that  not 
by  moralists,  but  by  anthropologists,  philologists, 
jurists,  historians,  and  observant  travellers.  I 
may  mention  especially  the  works  of  McLennan, 
Morgan,  Tylor,  Lubbock,  Herbert  Spencer,  Sir 
Henry  Maine,  Robertson  Smith,  Hearn,  Lyall, 
Letourneau,  Coulanges,  Schmidt,  Ploss,  and  Lip- 
pert.  The  investigations  which  they  have  con- 
ducted, within  recent  years,  into  the  origin  and  de- 
velopmert  of  the  family  relations  constitute  an 
important  chapter  in  the  yet  unborn  science  of 
historical  ethics. 

Among  all  the  virtues,  none  is  more  sacred  to 
Christendom  than  chastity,  and  none  has  been 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       207 

snpposed  more  primitive  in  its  history  or  intni* 
tive  in  its  natnre.  The  views  and  sentiments  en- 
tertained by  all  Christian  nations  toward  it  are 
expressed  at  once,  witli  accuracy  of  delineation 
and  nobility  of  style,  in  a  fine  apostrophe  in  the 
fourth  book  of  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost :  " 


• 


"  Hail,  wpdded  lovo,  mysterious  law,  true  source 
Of  human  offspring,  sole  propriety 
In  Paradise  of  all  things  comm^tn  else  I 
By  thee  adulterous  lust  was  driven  from  men 
Among  the  bestial  herds  to  range ;  by  thee, 
Founded  in  reason,  loyal,  just,  and  pure, 
Belations  dear,  and  all  the  charities 
Of  father,  son,  and  brother,  first  were  known. 
Far  be  it  that  I  should  write  thee  sin  or  blame, 
Or  think  thee  unbefitting  holiest  place, 
Perpetual  fountain  of  domestic  sweets. 
Whose  bed  is  undefiled  and  chaste  pronounced. 
Present  or  past,  as  saints  and  patriarchs  used. 
Here  love  his  golden  shafts  employs,  here  lights 
His  constant  lamp,  and  waves  his  purple  wings, 
Beigns  here  and  revels ;  not  in  the  bought  smile 
Of  harlots — loveless,  joyless,  uncndeared, 
Casual  fruition." 

In  this  sublime  passage  are  voiced  assumptions 
that  were  universal  in  Milton's  time  and  all  but 
universal  to-day.  It  is  implied  that  in  the  begin- 
nings of  human  life,  wliile  everything  else  was 
common,  women  were  already  individually  appro- 
priated by  men,  or,  in  other  words,  that  mo- 


h 


208    Assumptions  about  the  Family, 

nogynons  and  monandrous  marriage  obtained ;  it 
is  further  implied  that  this  is  the  only  natural 
form  of  relation  between  man  and  woman,  Hy- 
men excluding  the  very  idea  of  casual  connec- 
tion ;  and  it  is  finally  implied  that  from  this  ex- 
clusiveness  in  "  wedded  love  "  alone  could  spring 
a  tree  of  family  relationship  with  its  flower  of 
domestic  virtues.  Whether  these  assumptions  are 
facts,  or  uncritical  dogmas  having  no  other  sup- 
port than  the  inartia  of  incurious  tradition,  is 
the  first  question  we  have  to  consider.  And 
should  it  appear  from  the  investigating  torch  of 
history  that  the  assumptions  are  illusory,  wo 
should  then  have  to  determine  in  what  way  the- 
ories of  ethics  were  affected  by  the  discovery. 
Having  rejected  Darwin's  supposition  of  a  meta- 
morphosis of  the  absolutely  non-moral  into  the 
moral,  it  would  be  incumbent  upon  us  to  find 
some  other  interpretation  of  the  late  emergence 
of  chastity,  should  history  show  that  chastity  was 
not  at  the  first  universally  recognized  as  a  virtue. 
The  first  scientific  study  of  the  history  of  mar- 
riage was  made  by  the  late  Mr.  J.  F.  McLennan 
in  an  interesting  and  highly  original  work,  pub- 
lished in  1865  under  the  title  of  "Primitive 
Marriage,"  and  republished  in  1876  as  "  Studies 
in  Ancient  History."     The  object  of  the  work  is 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       209 


to  determine  the  development  of  conjugal  rela- 
tions  among  mankind  by  an  examination  of  the 
origin  and  meaning  of  the  symbol  of  capture  in 
marriage  ceremonies.  The  next  epoch*making 
work  was  Mr.  Lewis  II.  Morgan's  "Systems  of 
Consanguinity  and  Affinity  of  the  Human  Fam- 
ily," which  appeared  in  1871  in  the  "  Smithso- 
nian Contributions  to  Knowledge"  (vol.  xvii.), 
and  was  afterward  reproduced  in  a  condensed 
and  more  readily  available  shape  in  "  Ancient 
Society  "  (pt.,  iii.,  pp.  383-521).  It  is  an  attempt 
to  trace  the  growth  of  the  family  by  a  compara- 
tive stud;'  of  the  methods  of  reckoning  relation- 
ship. These  investigations  into  the  early  history 
of  the  family  are  in  themselves  so  valuable,  and 
in  reputation  so  classic,  that  we  cannot  do  better 
than  set  out  with  them.  They  give  us  facts  and 
theories  together ;  but  it  will  not  be  hard  to  sep- 
arate these  and  form  an  independent  judgment 
on  the  amount  of  support  the  facts  give  to  the 
theories. 

McLennan  starts  with  the  existence  and  preva- 
lence of  the  form  of  capture  in  marriage  cere- 
monies. It  must  be  a  survival,  he  thinks,  of  a 
system  of  actual  wife-stealing.  If  the  members 
of  a  tribe   were   allowed  to   marry  within  the 

tribe— that  is,  in  the  felicitous  mintage  of  Mc- 
U 


II 


1  I' 

m   \ 


■*'fi 


M 


2\o  McLennan  s  Theory  of  the  Family, 

Lennan,  if  the  tribe  is  endogamovs — the  symbol 
of  capture  could  not  conceivably  come  into  being. 
But  if  marriage  witliin  the  tribe  were  prohibited 
— that  is,  if  the  tribe  were  exogamous — and  if  a 
state  of  war  usually  prevailed  between  neighbor- 
ing tribes,  as  was  the  case  in  primitive  times,  each 
tribe  could  get  wives  only  by  theft  or  force  ;  and 
the  reality  of  capture  would,  when  friendly  re- 
lations came  to  be  estab^shed,  degenerate  into 
the  form  of  capture.  Now,  it  is  a  fact  that  ex- 
ogamous tribes  exist  and  have  existed.  And  of 
the  prevalence  of  capturing  wives  de  facto  savage 
and  barbarous  tribes  still  furnish  abundant  illus- 
tration. It  is  also  found  that  the  rule  against 
marriage  between  members  of  the  same  tribe 
coexists  with  the  practice  of  capturing  wives  de 
facto  and  with  the  form  of  capture  in  marriage 
ceremonies. 

If,  then,  the  capture  of  women  for  wives  and, 
consequently,  the  form  of  capture  in  marriage 
ceremonies  are  to  be  lef erred  to  exogamy,  what, 
we  must  next  ask,  is  the  origin  of  exogamy  ?  A 
survey  of  the  facts  of  primitive  life  forbids  the 
supposition  that  it  originated  in  any  innate  or 
primary  feeling  against  ma/riage  with  kinsfolk. 
It  may,  howcer,  be  connected  with  the  practice 
of  female  infanticide ;  and  it  was  this,  says  Mc- 


The  Evolution  of  Alorality,       211 


Lennan,  "  which,  rendering  women  scarce,  led  at 
once  to  polyandry  within  the  tribe  and  the  capt- 
ure of  women  from  without"  ("Ancient  His- 
tory," p.  111).  In  the  struggle  for  life  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  triumphed  over  the 
love  of  offspring ;  and  while  male  children  were 
reared  to  grow  up  as  braves  and  hunters,  female 
children,  in  youth  as  in  maturity  a  mere  burden 
to  the  community,  were  destroyed.  And  this 
disturbance  of  the  balance  of  the  sexes  involved 
wife-stealing  and  polyandry. 

Another  consequence,  affecting  ideas  of  kin- 
ship, must  be  noticed.  In  the  earliest  times, 
according  to  McLennan,  the  unions  of  the  sexes 
were  "  loose,  transitory,  and  in  some  degree  pro- 
miscuous "  (p.  131).  There  may  then  have  been 
no  perception  of  relationship,  for  relationship  is 
rooted  in  a  physical  fact — the  fact  of  consanguin- 
ity ;  and  this,  like  other  objects  of  observation 
and  reflection,  was  probably  long  overlooked. 
But  when  it  was  first  perceived,  the  idea  of  blood- 
relationship  was  embodied  in  a  system  of  kinship 
through  females  only — as  was  natural  when  pa- 
ternity was  absolutely  uncertain.  Kow,  however, 
when  the  original  poly  and  rous  and  polygynous 
proTjiscuity  was  so  far  qualified,  in  consequence 
of  the  killing  of  female  children,  as  that  several 


i  \ 


I! 


• 


h 
I 


Hi 


212 


Its  Actual  Facts, 


i      ! 


li  ."i'l! 


Illi 


men  were  assigned  to  one  woman  and  she  to 
them,  exclusively,  and  when  to  this  nidest  form 
of  polyandry  succeeded  that  (practised  by  the 
Tibetans)  in  which  the  husbands  are  all  brothers, 
it  became  for  the  first  time  possible  to  determine, 
if  not  the  father,  at  least  t^  o  blood  of  the  father; 
and  as  a  consequence  there  began  to  emerge  a 
system  cl:  kinship  and  inheritance  through  males, 
which  received  its  full  development  when  mar- 
riage became  monogamous  and  paternity,  there- 
fore, indisputable.  How  this  new  system  of 
reckoning  relationship  adapted  itself,  in  the  case 
of  exogamous  tribes,  to  the  practice  of  marrying 
within  the  tribe,  which  was  permissible  under 
the  system  of  female  kinship  and  had  practically 
made  the  tribe  endogamons,  it  does  not  concern 
us  here  to  explain.  We  are  interested  in  Mc- 
Lennan's  speculations  only  in  so  far  as  they  con- 
cern the  forms  of  family  relations  and  the  mo- 
rality of  them. 

Now,  for  that  purpose,  nothing  is  of  more  con- 
sequence than  the  facts ;  and  McLennan  has  put 
it  beyond  doubt  that  the  phenomena  of  infanti- 
cide, wife-stealing,  exogamy,  polyandry,  kinship 
through  females  as  well  as  through  males,  and 
tribal  intermarriage  or  endogamy,  are  all  to  be 
found  within  the  area  of  savagery  and  barbarism. 


H' 


The  Evolution  of  Morality »       213 


A  new  theory  may  of  course  be  formed  of  the 
order  of  their  connection,  or  sequence;  but  it 
is  the  indisputable  merit  of  McLennan  to  have 
shown  the  existence  and  prevalence  of  the  phe- 
nomena themselves.  One  could  almost  wish  that 
80  keen  an  observer  had  contented  himself  with 
collecting  and  grouping  facts  of  savage  life,  an 
increase  of  which  would  scarcely  have  failed  to 
sober  his  speculations.  For  nothing  is  more 
striking  in  his  work  than  the  disproportion  be- 
tween the  vastness  of  his  hypothesis  and  the 
comparative  scantiness  of  the  facts  adduced  to 
support  it.  It  does  not  appear  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  among  savages  who  generally  mar- 
ried within  their  own  tribe  wives  should,  when 
opportunity  offered,  have  been  stolen  from  other 
tribes;  and  even  descent  through  females  may 
always,  as  it  does  to-day,  coexist  with  descent 
through  males.  In  any  case,  we  shall  I'equire  a 
much  larger  collection  of  evidence  than  has  yet 
appeared  to  convince  us  that  every  branch  of  the 
human  family  has  gone  through  precisely  the 
same  course  of  development.  Yet  this  supposi- 
tion seems  to  underlie  current  investigation  into 
the  history  of  family  relations.  The  ajpriori  fal- 
lacy would  seem  to  have  arisen  from  confound- 
ing facts  with  the  mind's  method  of  apprehend- 


I 


\> 


!.'** 


'ill 
i 


214        Is  Development  Uniform  f 

ing  them.  Knowledge,  indeed,  proceeds  from 
the  vagne  to  the  definite,  but,  as  Lotze  used 
to  say,  existence  is  under  no  obligation  to  con- 
form itself  to  our  method  of  cognizing  it ;  and  I 
see  no  warrant  for  the  current  assumption,  that 
the  relations  between  the  sexes  began  everywhere 
with  indefinite  promiscuity,  and  were  gradually 
determined,  in  the  manner  of  an  abstract  notion 
in  logic,  into  more  regulated  forms,  which  at  last 
culminated  in  monogamy.  The  inexhaustible 
life  and  variety  of  Iiistorical  movements  must  not 
be  sacrificed  to  the  dead,  monotonous  mechanism 
of  the  logician's  art,  whether  it  be  attempted  by 
Hegel  or  by  those  who  criticise  him.  And  the 
elimination  of  circumstance  and  accident,  which 
experience  shows  us  are  so  potent  in  the  forma- 
tion and  development  of  contemporary  institu- 
tions and  habits,  is  all  the  more  unjustifiable  in 
the  early  history  of  mankind,  when  human  beings 
were  more  than  now  the  prey  of  contingency,  and 
yet  possessed  fewer  ideas  for  extricating  them- 
selves from  its  clutches.  Our  antecedent  expec- 
tation, therefore,  would  be  that  the  social  insti- 
tutions of  savages  would  everywhere  be  condi- 
tioned by  their  environment ;  and  that  while  in 
one  section  of  the  vast  area  of  savagery,  where 
women  happjened  to  be  scarce,  polyandry  might; 


The  Evoltiiion  of  Morality.       215 

be  practised,  in  another,  under  more  normal  con- 
ditions, polygyny,  or  even  monogamy,  would  be 
the  general  rule.  And  it  is  surely  a  subject  of 
amazement  in  McLennan's  theory  that  polygyny 
does  not  appear  as  one  of  the  earliest  stages  in 
the  evolution  of  the  famil3\  When  the  ances- 
tors of  man  had  most  of  the  animal  in  them,  they 
could  scarcely  have  gone  by  an  arrangement 
which  power  and  sexual  jealousy  make  natural 
for  the  lower  animals.  And  of  the  primitiveness 
of  polygyny  neither  biology  nor  history  leaves 
us  in  doubt.  But  the  coexistence  of  other  forms, 
under  different  conditions,  need  not  be  disputed. 
Indeed,  even  in  McLennan's  argument  there  is 
a  tacit  confession  that  endogamy,  which  with 
polygyny  and  the  family  he  would  make  the  out- 
come of  the  long  development,  must  have  been 
as  archaic  as  exogamy ;  for  he  observes  t^  at  the 
separate  endogamous  tribes  are  not  cnly  as  nu- 
merous, but  "in  some  respects  as  rude,  as  the 
separate  exogamous  tribes"  (p.  116). 

McLennan  imagines  primitive  men  to  have 
wandered  about  in  hordes  without  any  concep- 
tion of  family  relations.  Their  sexual  condition 
was  one  of  unqualified  promiscuity,  in  the  restric- 
tion of  which,  through  polyandry,  he  conceives 
all  advance  to  have  been  made.    But  although  in 


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216       Darwin  versus  McLennan, 

this  assnmption  of  "  communal  marriage,"  or  ab- 
cn'ginal  hetairism,  McLennan  is  followed  by  Lub- 
bock, Bachofen,  and  Morgan,  the  theory  receives 
no  confirmation  either  from  the  physiology  and 
psychology  of  man  and  other  animals  or  from  the 
known  customs  of  savage  and  barbarous  peoples. 
"  We  may  indeed  conclude  from  what  we  know 
of  the  jealousy  of  all  male  quadrupeds,"  says  Dar- 
win, "  that  promiscuous  intercourse  in  a  state  of 
nature  is  extremely  improbable.  .  .  .  There- 
fore, looking  far  enough  back  in  the  stream  of 
time,  and  judging  from  the  social  habits  of  man 
as  he  now  exists,  the  most  probable  view  is  that 
he  aboriginally  lived  in  small  communities,  each 
with  a  single  wife,  or  if  powerful  with  several, 
whom  he  jealously  guarded  against  all  other  men  " 
("Descent  of  Man,"  pp.  690,  691).  In  archaic 
times  there  prevailed 

**  —  the  simple  plan, 
That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power. 
And  they  Bhould  keep  who  can." 

In  the  struggle  for  life  and  survival  of  the  fittest 
we  expect  the  selection  and  evolution  of  power 
and  sexual  jealousy.  It  seems  incredible  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  equal  and  indiscriminate  co- 
partnership in  the  possession  of  women  should 
have  been  the  outcome  of  that  war  of  all  against 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       217 


all.  And,  indeed,  actual  evidence  of  the  forma- 
tion of  rudimentary  societies,  by  an  observer  so 
competent  as  Sir  A.  Lyall,  shows  that  if  the  per- 
plexed jungle  of  primitive  society  springs  out  of 
many  roots, "  the  hero  is  the  tap-root  from  which, 
in  a  great  degree,  all  the  rest  were  nourished  and 
grown  "  ("Asiatic  Studies,"  p.  168).  Nor  do  we 
find  in  the  known  habits  and  customs  of  savages 
any  evidence  of  the  very  unheroic  practice  of  com- 
munal marriage.  McLennan  does  not  attempt  to 
establish  the  point,  which  is  simply  postulated  as 
a  background  for  the  unfolding  of  his  theory. 
In  fact,  however  lax  the  marital  arrangements 
among  savages,  some  kind  of  permanent  union, 
some  appropriation  of  individual  women  by  in- 
dividual men,  is  always  to  be  found  or  inferred. 
If  the  Esquimaux  lend  their  wives,  they  mnst 
have  wives  of  their  own  whom  others  cannot  ap- 
propriate without  their  consent.  Even  the  Aleu- 
tian Islanders  and  Fuegians  have  fixed  marital 
relations,  and  it  would  bo  difficult  to  find  more 
degraded  tribes  than  there. 

Promiscuity  in  McLennan's  system  is  followed 
by  infanticide  of  females,  which  would  naturally 
evolve  polyandry  and,  if  carried  far  enough,  wife- 
stealing  too.  But  in  considering  this  practice  as 
universally  prevalent,  McLennan  manifestly  goes 


h  V 


3' 
1I; 


v\ 


Mi' 


218       Infanticide  Misinterpreted, 

beyond  the  limits  of  possibility.  If  all  clans 
killed  their  infant  daughters,  where  could  women 
be  found  even  to  steal  ?  Under  the  stress  of  cir- 
cumstances making  it  impossible  to  procure  suffi- 
cient subsistence,  it  is  conceivable  that  savages 
should  destroy  their  young ;  but,  knowing  the 
savage's  incapacity  for  providing  against  the  fut- 
ure, I  find  it  hard  to  believe  that,  in  the  cruel 
grasp  of  the  present,  he  should  discriminate  be- 
tween boys  and  girls  when  both  alike  are  equally 
burdensome.  And  Sir  John  Lubbock  assures  us, 
that  while  infanticide  has  widely  prevailed  among 
savages,  "  boys  were  killed  as  frequently  as  girls. 
Eyre  expressly  states  that  this  was  the  case  in 
Australia  "  ("  Origin  of  Civilization,"  p.  81).  It 
should  further  be  noted  that  if,  as  McLennan 
supposes,  female  infanticide  coexists  with  exog- 
amy and  wife-stealing,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
explain,  not  why  so  many  female  children  are 
killed,  but  why  any  are  spared,  seeing  that  none 
can  be  married  within  the  tribe. 

No  doubt,  again,  infanticide  of  females  would 
be  sufficient  to  account  for  polyandry  ;  but  neither 
infanticide  (whether  of  girls  or  boys  or  of  both) 
nor  polyandry  can  be  shown  to  be  practices  of  uni- 
versal prevalence.  It  is  possible,  though  not,  I 
think,  verifiable,  that  in  special  circumstances  the 


ill    I 

in 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       219 

killing  of  female  infants  may  have  led  to  polyan- 
dry ;  but  more  natural  explanations  may  easily 
be  found.  Sir  Henry  Maine  tells  us  of  the  origin 
of  a  modern  case  of  polyandry :  "  It  is  known  to 
have  arisen  in  the  native  Indian  army  "  ("  Early 
Law  and  Custom,"  p.  124).  And  if  we  suppose 
in  primitive  times,  similarly,  a  number  of  men 
torn  away  from  their  original  seats  (in  which  the 
balance  between  the  sexes  may  have  been  even) 
with  only  a  few  women  among  them,  we  have, 
judging  from  the  analogy  of  the  Indian  army, 
all  the  conditions  required  for  the  emergence 
of  polyandry.  !Now,  as  Sir  Henry  Maine  has 
pointed  out  {Ojp.  cit.^  p.  212),  our  earliest  glimpses 
of  a  great  part  of  the  human  race  reveal  it  in  a 
state  of  movement.  Fighting,  or  wandering  for 
food,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  in 
many  cases  they  settled  in  new  seats  with  only  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  women ;  and  there 
is  evidence  that  some  of  the  islands  of  the  Pacific 
were  settled  by  boat-loads  of  men  with  only  a  few 
of  the  other  sex.  Polyandry  could  thus  be  ex- 
plained without  denying  to  primitive  man  those 
instincts  of  power  and  jealousy  which  biologists 
and  psychologists  alike  attribute  to  him.  But,  of 
course,  it  could  make  no  pretence  to  being  an  in- 
variable stage  for  the  whole  human  race  in  the 


220     Wife-stealing  and  Polyandry. 

course  of  its  development.  On  the  contrary,  it 
would  be  seen  to  have  originated,  under  excep- 
tional circumstances,  with  the  strays  and  waifs 
of  humanity.  As  the  only  steady  cause  of  ine- 
quality between  the  sexes  was  war,  which  would 
tend  to  leave  the  women  in  excess,  it  would  seem, 
in  the  absence  of  other  evidence,  that  polygyny 
was  in  all  probability  more  primitive  and  more 
universal  than  polyandry. 

It  is  also  a  fair  assumption  that  female  infan- 
ticide should  lead  to  wife-stealing,  which  might 
ultimately  crystallize  into  the  system  of  exogamy. 
Certainly  wife-stealing,  like  infanticide  and  poly- 
andry, actually  exists ;  and,  as  McLennan  was  the 
first  to  point  out,  the  form  of  capture  attests  its 
decay  among  tribes  who  once  practised  it.  We 
do  not,  therefore,  dispute  the  facts ;  but  we  do 
question  the  significance  with  which  McLennan 
endows  them.  There  is  no  evidence  that  wife- 
stealing  and  exogamy  were  universal  stages  in  the 
evolution  of  humanity.  In  fact,  the  connection 
between  infanticide,  polyandry,  and  the  capture 
of  women  is  arbitrarily  assumed  by  McLennan. 
Infanticide  may  coexist  with  polygyny  or  mo- 
nogamy. Polyandry  and  wife-stealing  we  should 
not  expect  to  find  conjoined ;  for  if  tribes  are 
brave  enough  to,  steal  wives,  they  would  not  cease 


f.4'     I 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       221 


stealing  till  they  liad  one  or  more  for  each  nan. 
And  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  is  authority  for  the  as- 
sertion that  "  where  wife-stealing  is  now  practised, 
it  is  commonly  associated  with  polygyny  ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  polyandry  is  &  trait  of  certain 
rude  peoples  who  are  habitually  peaceful "  ("  Soci- 
ology," i.,  pp.  646,  o47).  Thus  wife-stealing  tribes 
would  soon  cease  to  be  polyandrous  ;  and  McLen- 
nan is  left  without  a  basis  for  his  imaginary 
evolution  of  Nair  and  Tibetan  polyandry,  with 
their  ultimate  outcome  of  monogamy  and  descent 
and  inheritance  through  males.  Polyandry  is  a 
permanent  and  universal  stago  in  McLennan^s 
scheme  of  family  development.  Yet  we  have 
only  to  remember  that  women  captured  by  the 
stronger  tribe  were  lost  to  the  weaker  to  see  that 
with  the  growth  of  strong  tribes,  who  must  have 
had  women  in  excess,  there  was  a  concomitant 
decay  of  weaker  tribes,  until  none  but  the  strong, 
polygynist  tribes  remained.  The  polyandrous 
condition  was  never  general,  and  where  it  did  ex- 
ist, was  often  so  unstable  as  to  pass  almost  at 
once  over  into  its  opposite. 

Similarly,  the  opposition  between  exogamy  and 
endogamy  resolves  itself  into  a  vanishing  differ- 
ence. It  was  perhaps  inevitable,  in  the  first  flush 
of  a  new  discovery,  that  McLennan  should  have 


■ 


1: 


i 


;i 


222         Exogamy  and  Endogamy, 

overlooked  facts  equally  important.  It  was  of 
course  known,  both  from  Koman  and  Hindoo  law, 
that  persons  within  a  certain  degree  of  relation- 
ship (theoretically,  in  Hindoo  law,  persons  de- 
scended from  the  same  male  ancestor),  could  not 
intermarry.  But  McLennan  was  the  first  to  show 
the  prevalence  of  a  similar  restriction  among 
savage  and  barbarous  tribes.  Unfortunately,  he 
made  no  study  of  their  social  or  governmental  reg- 
ulations ;  and  the  fact  that  the  members  of  a  cer- 
tain group  could  not  intermarry,  taken  along  with 
the  fact  of  wife-stealing,  seemed  to  him  equiv- 
alent to  universal  prohibition  among  kindred. 
But  the  study  of  the  government  o^  ivages  is 
tending  to  the  same  result  as  wo  have  j  ust  noted 
among  the  Aryans.  Many  of  the  tribes  quoted 
by  McLennan  as  exogamous  are  found  to  be 
made  up  of  divisions,  or  gentea  (as  Morgan  calls 
them) ;  and  while  a  member  of  a  division  is  for- 
bidden marriage  within  it,  he  may  marry  in  any 
of  the  other  divisions  of  his  tribe.  Thus  among 
tlie  Iroquois,  a  "Wolf  may  not  marry  in  the  Wolf 
clan,  but  he  may  marry  a  woman  of  any  of  the 
remaining  seven  clans  among  the  five  tribes  of 
the  Iroquois ;  and  Sir  Henry  Maine  notices  the 
same  external  circle  among  the  Chinese.  It  is 
coming,  therefore,  to    be    established,   that    as 


» 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       223 


amoncf 


the  Komans  a  man  might  not  many 
within  the  prohibited  degrees,  yet  must  marry  a 
Koman,  so  among  savages  there  is  an  endogamous 
as  well  as  an  exogamons  circle ;  and  while  any 
particular  division  is  exogamous  with  regard  to 
itself,  it  is  endogamous  with  regard  to  the  re- 
maining divisions  of  the  tribe. 

A  word  with  regard  to  kinship  through  females 
must  end  this  survey  of  McLennan's  account  of 
the  family.  That  it  exists  among  certain  savages 
is  undeniable.  That  it  ever  existed  as  a  rule  for 
the  whole  human  race  is  an  assumption  that  has 
no  probability  in  its  favor,  and  an  assumption  we 
have  no  motive  to  make  when  polyandry  is  found 
not  to  be  an  invariable  stage  in  the  development 
of  marital  relations. 

The  facts  McLennan  has  brought  together  are 
eminently  valuable.  His  speculative  interpreta- 
tion of  them,  everywhere  ingenious  and  original, 
is  sometimes  fanciful  and  commonly  open  to  the 
charge  of  unwarranted  generalization. 

A  somewhat  similar  verdict  must  be  pronounced 
upon  Morgan. 

Morgan  undertook  to  determine  the  sequence 
of  family  institutions  from  systems  of  reckoning 
relationship.  Comparing  the  systems  of  many 
tribes,  he  held  that  the  entire  development  of  the 


'!•: 


224 


Morgans  Theory. 


Iiuman  family  is  represented  by  three  great  sys- 
tems of  consanguinity,  which  he  designated  the 
Malayan,  the  Turanian,  and  the  Aryan.  These 
systems  rest,  not  upon  nature,  but  upon  marriage ; 
so  that,  given  the  system,  we  may  infer  the  form 
of  marriage.  It  is  assumed  that  each  relationship, 
as  recognized  in  language,  is  what  at  one  time  act- 
ually existed  under  a  certain  form  of  marriage. 
Tlie  Aryan  system  is  deaorvptive — that  is,  it  makes 
the  relationship  of  each  person  specific  (as,  e.g.^ 
brother's  son,  father's  brothers  son).  The  Ma- 
layan and  Turanian  systems  are  classificatory — 
that  is,  they  arrange  in  categories  according  to 
generation  ("  brothers,"  e.g.,  including  not  only 
my  own,  but  the  sons  of  my  father's  brothers,  and 
"sons"  including  not  only  my  own,  but  my 
brothers'  also). 

A  system  of  consanguinity  is  naturally  slower 
to  change  than  the  form  of  the  family  whose  re- 
lationships it  expresses.  And  thus  it  is  that  the 
Malayan  system  of  consanguinity  and  affinity, 
outliving  for  unremembered  centuries  the  mar- 
riage customs  in  which  it  originated,  remains  to 
attest  the  fact  that  such  a  family  existed  when 
the  system  was  formed.  This  system,  though  its 
raison  d^etre  is  gone,  survives  in  daily  use  among 
the  Hawaiians  and  other  Polynesian  tribes.     Un- 


at  sys- 
,ed  the 

These 
rriage ; 
le  form 
onship, 
[me  act- 
arriage. 
t  makes 
(as,  e.g., 
rhe  Ma- 
catory — 
pding  to 
Dot  only 
[lers,  and 

but  my 

y  slower 

ehose  re- 

that  the 

affinity, 
the  mar- 
mains  to 
ied  when 

lOugh  its 
se  among 
)e8.    Un- 


T/ie  Evolution  of  Morality »       225 

der  it,  all  consanguineii,  near  and  remote,  are 
classified  into  five  categories.  Tlins,  myself,  my 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  those  whom  we  call  first, 
second,  third,  and  more  remote  cousinp.  are  all 
without  distinction  brothers  and  sisters.  My 
father  and  mother,  together  with  their  brothers 
and  sisters,  and  what  we  call  their  first,  second, 
and  more  remote  cousins,  are  all  without  distinc- 
tion my  parents.  Similarly  of  grandparents. 
And,  below  me,  my  sons  and  daughters,  with 
their  several  cousins,  as  before,  are  all  without 
distinction  my  children.  And  similarly  of  grand- 
children. Moreover,  all  the  individuals  of  the 
same  grade  are  brothers  and  sisters  to  each 
other. 

Now,  if  this  system,  as  we  must  assume,  ex- 
pressed relationships  which  once  actually  existed, 
we  may  deduce  from  it  the  form  of  the  family  in 
which  it  originated.  This  can  be  no  other  than 
what  Morgan  calls  the  consanguine  family — that 
arising  from  the  intermarriage  of  brothers  and 
sisters,  own  and  collateral,  in  a  group.  Since 
the  ^  ^lationships  recognized  in  the  system  are 
identical  with  those  emerging  from  the  consan- 
guine family,  the  latter  must  have  been  the  ba- 
sis of  the  system  of  consanguinity.  An  illustra- 
tion or  two  will  make  this  clear.  The  system 
15 


IP 


^^D;'' 

i 

^n'* 
^H^ 

f'  'i 

H^' 

h 

li 

h 

J'i 

1^' 

J;' 

■  j' 

j|. 

hI 

Ir: 

pr 

H' 

1 

f 

t 

lli' 

if 

'  ''  ■ 

226 


Consanguine  Family, 


makes  the  children  of  my  several  brothers  and 
sisters  my  sons  and  danghters :  the  reason  lies 
in  the  consangnine  family,  in  which  all  my  sis- 
ters and  my  brothers'  wives  are  my  wives.  Were 
I  a  female,  the  foregoing  relationships  would  be 
the  same ;  for,  in  the  consangnine  family,  my 
several  brothers  being  my  husbands,  their  chil- 
dren by  other  wives  would  be  my  step-children, 
which  relationship  being  unrecognized,  they  nat- 
urally fall  into  the  category  of  my  sons  and 
daughters.  Every  relationship  of  the  Malayan 
system  is  explicable  on  the  assumption  of  the  con- 
sangnine family,  and  no  other  ;  consequently  the 
system  is  evidence  conclusive  of  such  a  family. 

Under  the  Turanian  system  of  relationship, 
while  my  brothers'  children  continue  to  be  mine 
as  well  as  his,  and  mine  his  as  well  as  mine,  there 
is  a  departure  from  the  Malayan  system  in  mak- 
ing my  sister's  children  my  nephews  and  nieces, 
and  my  children  her  nephews  and  nieces.  From 
this  initial  difference  between  the  two  systems  fol- 
low all  other  differences.  Without  noticing  them, 
let  us  ask  at  once  what  kind  of  family  does  the 
Turanian  system  of  consanguinity  presuppose  as 
its  basis  ?  And  the  answer  is  clear :  A  family 
differing  from  the  consanguine  only  in  its  pro- 
hibition of  marriage  between  own  brothers  and 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       227 


ship, 
mine 
there 
iriak- 
ieces, 
From 
8  f  ol- 
liem, 
8  the 
66  as 
jamily 
pro- 
is  and 


sisters.  Tliat  is  to  say,  it  is  a  family  founded 
upon  the  intermarriage  of  several  sisters,  own  and 
collateral,  with  each  othei*'s  husbands  in  a  group, 
the  joint  husbands  not  being  necessarily  kinsmen 
of  each  other  ;  and,  also,  on  the  intermarriage  of 
several  brothers,  own  and  collateral,  with  each 
other's  wives  in  a  group,  these  wives  not  being 
necessarily  of  kin  to  each  other.  It  is  designated 
by  Morgan  the  punaluan  family,  from  a  Ha- 
waiian analogue.  And  he  supposes  it  to  have 
developed  from  the  consanguine  family  as  soon 
as  the  evils  of  close  inbreeding  came  to  be  gen- 
erally recognized.  And  from  it,  as  he  holds, 
sprang  the  organized  "  Gens  " — "  the  exogamous 
totem-kin  "  of  McLennan — whose  first  germ  con- 
sisted in  the  systematic  exclusion  of  brothers  and 
sisters  from  the  marriage  relation. 

Now,  as  there  is  a  complete  parallelism  (which 
we  have  not  here  space  to  illustrate)  between  the 
relationships  recognized  by  the  Turanian  system 
and  those  growing  out  of  the  punaluan  marriage, 
it  is  inferred  that  the  latter  is  the  ground  of  the 
former.  Tim  Turanian  system  of  consanguinity 
and  affinity  was  universal  among  the  North  Amer- 
ican aborigines,  and  has  been  found  in  South 
America  and  Africa ;  it  still  prevails  in  India  and 
Australia.   Like  the  Malayan,  it  survived  after  the 


r 


sr 


228 


Punaluan  Family, 


%\ 


foi'iii  of  family  in  which  it  oi'iginated  had  passed 
away.  The  form  of  family  advances  of  necessity 
faster  than  systems  of  consanguinity,  whieli  follow 
to  record  the  family  relationships.  And  it  takes 
something  like  a  revolution  to  bring  the  system 
of  consanguinity  into  line  with  the  changing 
structure  of  the  family.  It  was  through  the  or- 
ganization into  "Gentes"  that  the  Malayan  sys- 
tem was  changed  into  the  Turanian.  But  the 
Turanian  did  not  undergo  further  development ; 
and  being  false  to  the  evolving  forms  of  the  fam- 
ily, it  was  finally  superseded  by  the  Aryan  sys- 
tem, which  is  founded  on  facts  of  consanguinity 
in  the  monogamous  family.  But  between  the 
punaluan  and  the  monogamous  family  Morgan 
intercalates  two  other  forms.  The  higher  is  the 
jpatriarchal  family,  which  is  founded  on  the  union 
of  one  man  with  several  wives,  the  entire  house- 
hold being  organized  under  paternal  power ;  and 
the  lower  is  the  syndyasmian  ov  pairing  family, 
which  was  founded  upon  marriage  between  single 
pairs,  but  without  an  exclusive  cohabitation,  and 
continuing  only  during  the  pleasure  of  the  parties. 
The  pairing  family  is  a  development  of  the  pu- 
naluan, under  the  favoring  influence  of  improve- 
ment in  the  arts  of  life,  in  house-building,  in  the 
means  of  subsistence,  etc.     And  the  patriarchal 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       229 


igle 
and 
ties. 
pu- 
ove- 
L  the 
rchal 


family  springs  out  of  the  sjudyasmian  when 
pastoral  life  begins,  with  the  holding  of  lands  and 
the  care  of  flocks  and  herds.  Lastly  appears  the 
Tnonvqamous  family,  which  mnst  be  associated 
with  \he  rise  of  individual  property  and  the  de- 
sire of  fathers  to  establish  lineal  succession  to  es- 
tates. As  the  form  of  the  family  has  changed  in 
the  past,  so  must  it  in  the  future  keep  pace  with 
the  advance  of  society.  But  should  the  monog- 
amous family  fail  to  answer  the  coming  require- 
ments of  society,  it  is  impossible  to  predict  the 
nature  of  its  successor. 

Thus  the  theory  of  Morgan,  like  that  of  Mc- 
Lennan, reaches  out  into  a  past  and  a  future  as 
distant  as  each  is  hypothetical.  Hence  some  of 
the  objections  urged  against  McLennan's  theory 
are  equally  applicable  to  Morgan's.  There  is,  for 
instance,  not  the  slightest  ground,  apart  from  the 
exigencies  of  a  theory,  for  the  assumption  of  an 
aboriginal  promiscuity  in  sexual  relations,  which, 
indeed,  both  archaeology  and  biology  tend  to  dis- 
prove. And  it  may  be  reiterated,  once  more,  that 
it  is  a  gratuitous  concession  to  our  methodology 
when  the  facts  of  the  world  are  supposed  to  ar- 
range themselves  according  to  our  mode  of  appre- 
hending them.  We  have  no  evidence  whatever 
that  all   branches  of  the  human  family  passed 


\ 


m:i\ 


it'  M  I'f 

li  I 

■■;1  ■ 


i  ^1 


Mtj.' 


?  1^ 


ii^. 


III  I  ■ 

HI  (^  ■■ 


11 


;        ; 


230     Morgans  Great  Achievement, 

through  precisely  the  eanie  stages  of  develop* 
ineiit,  either  in  general  or,  still  less,  in  the  details 
of  their  social  iustitutions.  This  is  the  irp^rov 
'^^vho^i  of  the  theory  before  us.  And  not  only 
does  this  baseless  assumption  determine  the  ini- 
tial stage  of  the  theory,  it  colors  it  from  begin- 
ning to  end. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  not  possible  to  deny  the 
value  of  the  facts  collected  by  Morgan.  It  was, 
indeed,  a  stupendous  achievement  to  tabulate  and 
explain  the  systems  of  consanguinity  and  affinity 
of  one  hundred  and  thirty -nine  tribes  and  nations, 
representing,  numerically,  four-fifths  of  the  en- 
tire human  family.  And,  in  the  comparative 
study  of  institutions,  the  facts,  if  rightly  under- 
stood, are  of  vital  significance.  They  become 
misleading  only  when,  apart  from  history,  they 
are  supposed  to  tell  us  anything  about  the  order 
of  development  of  human  institutions.  Even  if 
it  were  granted  that  Morgan's  "  conjectural  solu- 
tion "  of  the  facts  is  correct,  and  that  the  several 
systems  of  consanguinity  really  imply  the  correl- 
ative existence  of  seveial  forms  of  the  family,  it 
would  have  to  be  conceded  that  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  the  whole  human  family  having  passed 
successively  through  all  these  stages,  or,  indeed,  of 
any  very  necessary  connection  between  the  stages 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       231 


themselves.  "  They  stand  to  each  other  in  a  logi- 
cal sequence  "  (p.  413),  says  Morgan  ;  and,  indeed, 
that  is  just  why  wo  suspect  them.  They  seem 
the  creatures  of  successive  logical  determination, 
rather  than  the  footprints  of  infant  humanity. 
Some  such  acknowledgment  is  implied  in  Mor- 
gan's confession  that  promiscuous  intercourse  has 
not  been  practised  "  within  the  time  of  recorded 
human  observation,"  and  that  it  can  only  be  "  de- 
duced theoretically  as  a  necessary  condition  ante- 
cedent to  the  consanguine  family"  (p.  502). 
And,  again,  the  Malayan  system,  which  expresses 
the  relationships  existing  under  the  consanguine 
family,  is  pronounced  the  oldest  form  "because  it 
is  the  simplest  (p.  403).  Thus  the  consanguine 
family  is  really  the  starting-point  of  the  whole 
system ;  from  it  promiscuity  is  inferred  to  have 
preceded,  and  without  it  the  punaluan  family 
could  not  emerge  in  the  sequel.  I  proceed,  there- 
fore, to  examine  this  crucial  point — the  evidence 
for  the  existence  of  tlie  consanguine  family,  on 
which  the  whole  theory  depends. 

As  a  family  organization,  Morgan  himself  tells 
us  it  nowhere  existed  in  historic  times.  The 
marriage  of  sisters  and  brothers,  own  and  collat- 
eral, in  a  group,  is,  as  we  saw,  solely  an  infer- 
ence from  the  Malayan  system  of  consanguinity 


ii 


f'r 

I'! 


mi 


mm 


f  If 

!,    'i  ' 


232  Marred  by  Speculation. 

and  affinity.  That  system  is  classificatory ;  it 
groups  all  individuals  of  the  same  generation  into 
a  class  and  calls  them  children,  or  parents,  or 
grandchildren,  or  grandparents,  without  further 
distinction  than  that  of  sex.  Now,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  Morgan's  hypothesis  satisfies  the  first 
condition  of  any  hypothesis :  it  is  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  facts.  But  when  we  ask  if  it 
is  in  itself  a  probable  assumption,  or  if  taking 
promiscuity  as  established  this  form  of  family 
was  likely  to  succeed  it,  it  is  impossible  to  an- 
swer in  the  affirmative.  AVe  must  therefore  seek 
a  more  probable  explanation  of  the  facts  repre- 
sented by  the  Malayan  system  than  the  consan- 
guine family  aifords.  A  natural  supposition  is 
that  the  Malayan  system  of  relationsliip  arose 
solely  from  a  poverty  of  language  among  savages. 
Some  qualification  will,  however,  be  necessary  in 
this  hypothesis,  since  Morgan  tells  us  that  many  of 
these  languages  are  rich  in  discriminating  terms 
of  address.  There  is  one  word  for  brother  or 
sister  when  a  younger  is  addressing  an  elder, 
and  another  in  the  converse  case.  It  must  there- 
fore be  admitted  that  their  concrete  terms,  of 
daily  and  hourly  use,  are  abundant  and  emi- 
nently significant.  But  may  we  not  assume  that 
abstract  terms  of  relationship  are  scanty  ?    Is  not 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       233 

that  what  our  science  of  coraparative  language 
leads  us  to  expect  ?  They  are  rich  in  concrete, 
poor  in  abstract,  terminology.  But  what  then 
follows  ?  Why,  that  this  so-called  Malayan  sys- 
tem of  consanguinity  and  affinity  is  not  based  on 
blood-ties  (these  not  being,  as  later  investigations 
show,  facts  of  Drii  lary  perception),  and  has  noth- 
ing at  all  to  do  with  any  particular  form  of  the 
family,  but  is  simply  a  rough  way  of  classifying 
all  the  generations  which  might  ever  bo  known 
to  any  individual.  Under  this  system  "  brother  " 
is  not  one  of  the  same  blood,  "  father  "  is  not  one 
who  begets,  "  mother  "  is  not  one  who  bears ;  all 
alike  are  descriptions  of  classes.  Is  there,  then, 
no  method  of  describing  relationships  nearer  ? 
The  objection  implied  in  the  question  touches 
our  hypothesis  not  more  than  the  other.  But, 
fortunately,  Morgan  himself  supplies  an  answer. 
"  A  descriptive  system  precisely  like  the  Aryan 
[*.«.,  the  one  we  use]  always  existed  both  with 
the  Turanian  and  the  Malayan  "  (p.  484).  The 
latter  would  therefore  seem  to  be  merely  a  classi- 
fication of  generations,  to  which,  naturally  enough 
among  communal  societies,  the  same  names  were 
applied. 

Besides,  Morgan's  hypothesis  does  not  give  an 
unquestionable  explanation  of  all  the  facts,  though 


■i     I 


I 


•r 


,^  'l 


r  '■( 

.1  i 
I' 

(^ 

li    if 


234     Mythical  and  Unsatisfactory, 

the  contrary  has  bo  far  been  assumed.  There  is 
one  part  of  tlie  so-called  Malayan  system  in  regard 
to  which  his  account  does  not  satisfy  nie.  If  there 
are  several  brothers,  A^  B^  C,  and  several  sisters, 
a,  hy  Of  then,  no  doubt,  in  the  consanguine  family, 
where  Af  B,  C\  and  o,  h,  c,  are  intermarried,  a's 
children  may  be  called  children  of  A  and  B  and 
O,  and  similarly  of  ^'s  children  and  c's  children  ; 
but  why  should  a's  children  be  called  ^^s  and  c's, 
and  ^'s  children  a's  and  €%  and  c'a  children  a's 
and  h'Bf  as  they  are  designated  in  the  Malayan  sys- 
tem ?  Because,  says  Morgan,  -4,  B,  and  O  being 
husbands  of  a,  their  children  by  b  and  0  would 
be  a's  step-children,  which  relationship  being  un- 
recognized, they  naturally  fall  into  the  category 
of  a's  sons  and  daughters  (p.  410).  But  this  is 
surely  to  attribute  to  primitive  savages  our  own 
modes  of  tracing  relationship,  founded  upon  mo- 
nogamous marriage.  And  when  Morgan  observes, 
by  way  of  proof,  that  "among  ourselves  a  step- 
mother is  called  mother,  and  a  step-son  a  son,"  he 
overlooks  the  fact  that  there  is  with  us  no  other 
mother,  and  the  father  is  always  the  same.  I^or 
does  the  case  have  any  analogy  with  that  of  call- 
ing A  and  B  and  O  fathers.  They  are  so  called 
because,  although  only  one  of  them  can  be  the  fa- 
ther of  the  child,  any  one  of  them  may  have  been, 


•ves. 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       235 

and  the  pateniity  ie  supposed  to  be  unknown. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  tliat  a  is  the  mother  of 
lier  child,  and  that  h  is  the  mother  of  hers.  Pater- 
nity is  doubtful,  because  it  is  inferred  ;  maternity, 
being  a  fact  of  perception,  does  not  admit  of 
doubt.  Wliy,  then,  does  a's  child  call  h  mother,  and 
^'s  child  call  a  mother  %  This  cannot  be  explained 
by  the  consanguine  family.  But  it  is  a  species 
of  relationship  recognized  in  the  Malayan  system  ; 
therefore,  that  system  is  not  based  on  the  consan- 
guine family.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  that  system 
be  supposed  a  mere  classification  of  the  genera- 
tions known  to  most  individuals,  then  the  term 
"  mother "  must  be  applied  by  a  child  to  the 
women  a,  &,  and  c,  because  they  all  belong  to  the 
same  generation. 

With  the  disproof  of  the  existence  of  the  con- 
sanguine family,  Morgan's  theory  of  the  devel- 
opment of  marital  relations  falls  to  the  ground. 
The  punaluan  family,  by  which  he  accounts  for 
the  Turanian  system  of  relationship,  is  evolved 
from  the  consanguine  by  excluding  own  brothers 
and  sisters  from  the  marriage  union.  But  if  there 
never  was  a  consanguine,  there  could  be  no  puna- 
luan family  developed  from  it.  And,  accordingly, 
some  other  account  must  be  given  of  the  Turanian 
system  of  consanguinity.      If  we  admitted  the 


!  ';i 


i  * 

I 

( 
I 
t 

'I  ! 


urn 


m 


■>li 


236       I^ac/s  Otherwise  Explained, 

pnnalnan  family  as  an  explanation,  it  would  be 
open  to  most  of  tlie  objections  already  urged 
against  tbe  consanguine.  ExcUiding  it,  tlien,  bow 
are  tbe  pbenomena  to  be  explained  ?  It  would 
be  aside  from  our  present  purpose  to  enter  fully 
into  tbis  matter.  But  as  tbe  main  difference 
between  tbe  Malayan  and  Turanian  systems  lies 
in  tbe  fact  tbat  tbe  one  designates  my  sister's 
cbildren  as  my  cbildren,  and  tbe  otber  as  my 
nepbews  and  nieces,  an  explanation  of  tbe  di- 
vergency may  be  found  in  tbe  supposition  tbat 
wbile  tbe  old  classificatory  system,  in  general,  re- 
mained in  vogue,  it  became  modified  under  tbe 
organization  into  classes,  tbrougb  tbe  separa- 
tion establisbed  between  brotbers  and  sisters  by 
tbe  system  of  reckoning  descent  and  inberitance 
tbrougb  females  only.  My  sister's  cbildren  be- 
long to  ber  clan,  mine  to  tbe  clan  of  my  wife. 
A  new  designation,  tberefore,  was  needful,  wben 
a  rule  broke  up  tbe  old  communal  system  in 
wbicb  brotbers'  and  sisters'  cliildre:i  all  belong  to 
tbe  same  group  and,  being  of  tbe  same  genera- 
tion, were  designated  by  tbe  same  name. 

Wbile  tbe  consangnine  and  punaluan  families 
supply  an  imaginary  raison  WHre  for  tbe  Malayan 
and  Turanian  systems  of  relationsbip,  tbe  syndy- 
asmian  and  patriarcbal  families  have  not  even 


.1' 

, 

if 

1 

1 

The  Evolution  of  Morality,       237 

such  shadowy  support.  They  are  assumed,  not 
because  any  particular  system  of  kinship  intplied 
them,  but  because  they  mediated  the  logical  pro- 
gression from  the  punaluan  to  the  monogamous 
family.  Wo  know,  of  course,  from  history  and 
observation  that  such  unions  have  been  practised ; 
but  there  is  no  reason,  save  the  symmetry  of  log- 
ical development  assumed  in  Morgan's  theory, 
for  making  them  universal  stages  in  the  progress 
of  mankind.  As  they  do  not  profess,  like  the 
other  three  forms  of  the  family,  to  be  established 
from  systems  of  consanguinity,  and  are  only  spe- 
cies of  logical  determination  of  the  punaluan, 
we  need  not  consider  them  further. 

Nor  is  much  comment  required  ou  the  Aryan 
system  of  consanguinity  and  affinity.  It  differs 
from  the  preceding  systems  in  being  descriptive 
and  not  classificatory.  It  is  founded  on  the  mo- 
nogamous family,  whose  existence,  known  to  us 
for  three  thousand  years,  does  not  need  to  be  in- 
ferred from  any  system  of  consanguinity.  This 
Aryan  system  is  not,  according  to  Morgan,  a  de- 
velopment of  the  Turanian  as  the  Turanian  was 
of  the  Malayan.  It  is  an  entirely  different  sys- 
tem, having  no  sign  of  connection  with  the 
others.  Yet  Morgan  supposes  that  all  peoples, 
now  having  the  Aryan  system,  formerly  had  the 


1'  ': 


Wr 


M'' 


mi. 


i:i:^- 


I 


238 


Distrust  of  Theories, 


Turanian.  This  presumption  is,  however,  largely 
fonnded  on  the  assumption  that  the  inonogamons 
family  is  developed  from  the  punaluan.  But  we 
have  shown  that  there  is  no  satisfactory  evidence 
of  a  punaluan  family.  Morgan  adds,  it  is  true, 
that  the  "impoverished  condition  of  the  original 
nomenclature  of  the  Aryan  system,"  limited  as  it 
was  to  "  father  and  mother,  brother  and  sister, 
and  son  and  daughter,  and  a  common  term  ap- 
plied indiscriminately  to  nepliew,  grandson,  and 
cousin  "  (p.  481),  could  not  possibly  have  been 
the  sole  nomenclature  of  relationships  used  by  a 
people  in  so  advanced  a  condition  ay  the  Aryans ; 
and  he  therefore  assumes  that  at  that  time  the 
Turanian  system  was  just  dying  out  among  them. 
But  this  is  little  better  than  begging  the  question. 
What  was  there  in  the  simple  relations  of  primi- 
tive Aryan  society  that  demanded  a  complex  sys- 
tem of  consanguinity  ?  There  is  no  ground  for 
supposing,  as  there  is  absolutely  no  evidence,  that 
the  beginnings  of  the  Aryan  system  were  syn- 
chronous with  the  disintegration  of  the  Turanian. 
This  protracted  examination  of  the  theories 
which  have  been  furnished  by  Morgan  and  Mc- 
Lennan of  the  evolution  of  conjugal  relations 
cannot  fail,  I  think,  to  induce  a  sceptical  state  of 
mind  in  relation  to  all  such  speculations.     The 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       239 

data  are  so  scanty,  the  lacunas  so  nnmerons,  that 
ahnost  any  hypothesis,  it  wonld  seem,  niiglit  es- 
tablish some  claim  to  verification.  Onr  informa- 
tion is  made  up  of  a  collection  of  scattered 
observations  on  the  marriage  cnstoms  of  a  small 
part  of  the  human  family.  Moved  by  the  scien- 
tific impulse,  we  attempt  to  discover  their  origin 
and  causes.  But  if  even  in  physical  iiivestiga- 
gations,  where  complicating  conditions  may  be 
eliminated,  we  are  always  liable  to  error  fi-om  the 
possibility  of  a  plurality  of  causes,  how  much 
more  so  in  dealing  with  social  phenomena  which 
are  inextricably  entangled  and  intertwined.  The 
ignoring  of  this  limitation  is  the  weak  point  in 
the  argument  of  Professor  Robertson  Smith, 
whose  "  Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia  " 
is  otherwise  (if  I  may  say  so)  a  model  of  philo- 
logico-historical  research.  "When  Professor  Smith 
lays  down  (p.  132)  that  "  the  very  object  of  hj^- 
pothesis  is  to  inquire  whet'  er  a  real  cause  {vera 
causa)  has  not  had  a  wider  operation  than  there 
is  any  direct  evidence  for,"  his  position  may  not 
be  disputed ;  but  when  he  adds  "  the  necessary 
and  sufficient  proof  that  this  is  so  is  the  wide 
prevalence  of  effects  which  the  cause  is  adequate 
to  produce,"  he  overlooks  altogether  the  possi- 
bility, and,  indeed,  in  human  affairs  the  proba- 


11 


IF 


;  :ii-'-^ 


240         Robertson  Smith's  Logic. 

bility,  of  the  same  piienom^non  having  different 
causes.  The  "  necessary  and  snfiicieiit  proof  "  must 
show,  not  only  (1)  the  prevalence  of  the  effects, 
and  (2)  the  adequacy  of  a  certain  antecedent  to 
produce  them,  but  also  (3)  the  impossibility  of 
their  being  produced  by  any  other  antecedent  or 
antecedents.  This  last  all-essential  link  in  the 
demonstration  is  what  is  wanting  in  current 
theories  of  the  development  of  the  family.  And 
with  the  omission  of  it  goes  a  corresponding 
neglect  of  the  environment  and  circumstances, 
physical,  social,  and  especially  historical,  in  which 
any  particular  form  of  marriage  appears.  Iso- 
lating the  various  conjugal  relations  from  their 
historic  settings,  in  which  alone  an  explanation  of 
each  is  to  be  found,  the  theorist  generally  puts 
them  in  an  arbitrary  row,  as  one  might  string 
beads,  and  then  asseverates  that  this  linear  ar- 
rangement of  contemporaneous  phenomena  in 
space  corresponds  to  the  successive  order  of  their 
evolution  in  time !  Meanwhile,  no  one  knows  that 
there  has  been  such  a  universal  development ;  or 
that  there  ever  was  a  time  when  all  the  forms  of 
the  family  did  not  coexist  as  they  do  to-day. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  even  the  most 
conservative  school  of  moralists  need  sacrifice 
nothing  to  the  current  theory  of  the  evolution  of 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       241 

the  family.  There  can  be  no  settlement  of  any 
ethical  question  by  an  arbitrary  deduction  of  all 
forms  of  conjugal  relations  from  a  single  imagi- 
nary source  along  a  single  imaginary  path.  Ko 
light  is  thrown  upon  the  study  of  morals  by  an 
appearance  of  deriving  historic  from  prehistoric 
institutions.  Yet,  in  the  study  of  the  family,  this 
unfruitful  method  has  for  the  most  part  been 
followed ;  and  from  McLennan's  "Primitive 
Marriage"  to  Lippert's  recent  valuable  "Ge- 
schichte  der  Familie  "  simple  facts  are  obscured 
by  overshadowing  speculative  theories.  What 
forms  of  marriage  now  exist  we  know  or  may 
knov, ;  what  existed  in  historic  times  we  have 
some  report  of;  but  beyond  this  horizon  all  is 
darkness,  and  remains  darkness,  though  Morgan 
and  Lippert  would  fain  conjure  up  the  unrecorded 
past,  and  Letourneau  in  piophetic  vision  predict 
the  course  of  the  yet  unborn  future. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  with  theories  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  family  that  moralists  have  to  reckon. 
Like  other  phantasies  and  bold  guesses,  these  may 
be  passed  by.  But  it  is  different  with  facts — 
actual  observations  made  within  the  historical 
horizon.  These  have  a  vital  interest  for  the 
moralist.  And  it  is  the  merit  of  the  evolu- 
tionist to  have  recognized  their  significance, 
16 


242     Ethics  need  Facts^  not  Theories, 

though  in  general  he  managed  to  eviscerate  it 
by  adapting  tliem  to  some  extraneone  speculation, 
cosmic  or  sociological. 

Many  of  the  more  striking  facts  known  in  re- 
gard to  family  relations  have  already  been  men- 
tioned in  connection  with  the  theories  into  which 
they  have  been  woven.  If  these  theories  have 
been  rejected,  it  was  not  from  any  desire  to  min- 
imize the  revolting  character  of  the  marital  con- 
nections between  men  and  women  in  many  savage 
or  barbarous  tribes.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
every  people  once  lived  in  absolute  promiscuity 
or  in  consanguine  families ;  but  it  is  a  fact  that 
among  the  Todas  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills  the 
husband's  brothers  become  Inisbands  of  the  wife, 
and  the  wife's  sisters  become  common  wives  of 
all  her  husbands. 

The  custom  of  reckoning  kinship  through  fe- 
males may  not  always  have  preceded  the  cus- 
tom of  reckoning  kinship  through  males,  but 
McLennan,  Bachofen,  Robertson  Smith,  and  Lip- 
pert  liave  shown  that  it  was  at  least  a  widely  ex- 
tended practice.  It  is  found  among  the  natives 
of  America,  Australia,  and  Africa.  It  prevailed 
also  in  the  ancient  world.  The  Egyptians  long 
lield  the  mother's  name  indispensable;  the  Ly- 
cians.  as  Herodotus  narrates  fully,  traced  gene- 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       243 

alogies  through  mothers  ;  the  Germans,  according 
to  Tacitns,  considered  the  relationship  between 
children  and  their  mother's  brother  closer  than 
that  between  children  and  their  own  father.  In 
Hebrew,  em,  the  word  for  "  mother,"  also  means 
"  stock,  race,  community,"  and  similarly  with  the 
Arabic  omm^  ommaj  while  in  either  language, 
again,  the  bonds  of  relationship  are  designated  by 
a  word  connoting  the  "  womb."  And  Professor 
Smith  makes  the  highly  original  suggestion  that 
Eve,  "the  mother  of  all  living"  (Gen.  lii.  20), 
is  "  the  universal  eponyma,  to  whom  all  kinship 
groups  must  be  traced  back.  Eve  is  the  person- 
ification of  the  bond  of  kinship  (conceived  as  ex- 
clusively mother-kinship),  just  as  Adam  is  sim- 
ply *  nian,'  i.e.,  the  personification  of  mankind  " 
{Op.  cit,  p.  177).  Lastly,  in  the  "Eumenides" 
of  ^schylus,  Bachofen  saw  (like  Gervinus  with 
regard  to  "Hamlet")  a  tragic  conflict  between  two 
world-epochs:  the  hoary  age  of  mother-kinship, 
represented  by  the  Erinnyes,  and  the  dawning 
age  of  father-kinship  as  announced  by  Apollo  and 
certified  by  Athene  in  the  judicial  acquittal  of 
the  matricide  Orestes. 

Along  with  mother-kinship  goes  the  custom  of 
a  husband  settling  in  the  family  of  his  wife. 
Livingston  found  an  isolated  example  of  it  not 


244      Woman  the  Head  of  the  Family. 


far  from  Zululand.  The  main  features  were 
that  the  man,  in  order  to  marry,  had  to  move 
to  the  craal  of  his  wife,  promise  constantly  to 
provide  the  mother-in-law  with  wood,  never  un- 
dertake service  elsewhere  without  her  consent, 
and,  in  case  of  separation,  leave  all  the  children 
as  property  of  the  wife.  Among  ancient  Arab 
tribes,  the  husband  also  went  to  the  tent  of  the 
wife ;  and  when  she  wished  to  dismiss  him  (for 
he  stayed  at  her  pleasure)  she  turned  the  tent 
round  so  that  the  door  faced  opposite  its  former 
direction,  "  and  when  the  man  saw  this  he  knew 
that  he  was  dismissed  and  did  not.  enter."  And 
in  Syriac  and  Hebrew,  as  well  as  Arabic,  the  hus- 
band is  said  to  "  go  in  "  to  the  bride.  It  will  be 
remembered,  too,  that  the  tent  to  which  Isaac 
took  Rebekah  was  "his  mother  Sarah's  tent" 
(Gen.  xxiv.  67),  and  that  Sisera  fled  "  to  the 
tent  of  Jael  the  wife  of  lleber  the  Kenite " 
(Judges  iv.  17),  and  that  Samson's  wife  lemained 
with  her  people,  and  received  there  the  visits  of 
her  husband  (Judges  xv.  1).  These  all  embody, 
in  a  modified  form,  what  seems  to  have  been  the 
imiversal  rule  of  primitive  marriage  among  the 
Hebrews :  "  Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his  fa- 
ther and  his  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his 
wife"  (Gen.  ii.  24).       , 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       245 

But  the  custom  of  reckoning  kinship  through 
women,  and  that  of  men  joining  the  family  of 
their  wives,  do  not  imply  promiscuous  relations 
between  the  sexes,  of  wliich,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  there  is  absolutely  no  evidence.  Never- 
theless, there  are  found  in  the  whole  area  of 
savagery,  side  by  side  with  marriage  relations 
and  domestic  virtues  like  our  own,  practices  and 
sentiments  wholly  unlike,  and  even  opposed  to 
them.  Nothing  can  be  more  striking  than  the 
variety  of  arrangements  in  regard  to  the  sexes. 
Very  frequently  wives  and  maidens  are  distin- 
guished, and  while  conjugal  fidelity  is  required 
of  the  former,  no  importance  is  attached  to  maid- 
enly chastity.  Even  in  marriage  some  Arab 
women  are  bound  for  only  four  days  of  the  week, 
being  free  to  go  with  anyone  they  like  during 
the  off  days.  And  once  a  year,  on  the  night  of 
a  certain  festival,  a  similar  liberty  was  enjoyed 
by  the  wives  of  the  Nicariiguan  aborigines. 
Again,  wives,  as  the  property  of  the  husband, 
might  occasionally  be  put  at  the  service  of  oth- 
ers ;  and  Cato^s  conduct  in  lending  Martia  to  his 
friend  Hortensius  is  nothing  more  than  the  laws 
of  hospitality  require  among  the  Esquimaux, 
Greenlanders,  and  other  tribes.  Still,  the  rule 
is  that  the  strictest  fidelity  is  demanded  of  mar- 


•'  »l 


=  !'■    ■! 


\  ii 


246 


Lax  Fidelity, 


ried  women.  A  Peruvian  maiden  might  live  a 
loose  life ;  but  if  as  wife  she  were  guilty  of  infi- 
delity, the  punishment  was  death.  A  similar 
fate  awaited  the  unchaste  wife  in  Mexico,  whcie 
divorce  was  reserved  for  such  slight  faults  as  bad 
character,  dirty  habits,  and  the  like.  Farther 
north,  among  the  Comanches,  the  wife  was  pun- 
ished by  cutting  off  her  nose.  Still,  it  is  not  pre- 
tended that  infidelity  was  always  regarded  as  a 
heinous  offence.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  a  wife 
might  be  divorced  for  much  less  weighty  reasons. 
This  brittleness  of  the  marriage  bond  is  a  very 
striking  characteristic  of  savage  family  life. 
Among  the  Iroquois  and  the  Tahitians  a  marriage 
might  be  dissolved  when  either  of  the  parties 
wished  it ;  but  the  right  of  effecting  a  separation 
generally  inhered  in  the  husband,  who  exercised 
it  freely  and  often  most  cnielly.  In  East  Africa, 
as  in  New  Zealand,  it  consisted  simply  in  turning 
the  wife  out  of  doors,  to  which  the  American 
Chippewayans  added  a  "good  drubbing."  Prop- 
erty and  children  remained  with  the  liusband, 
thoughto  this  rule  there  may  be  found  exceptions 
in  the  customs  of  the  Dakotahs,  Samoans,  Kar- 
ens, and  others. 

"While  restrictions  are  generally  put  upon  mar- 
ried women,  whose  conjugal  fidelity  is  the  natural 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       247 

outgrowth  of  their  position  as  property  or  chat- 
tels of  tlie  husband,  the  greatest  laxity  is  often 
allowed  to  young  unmarried  girls,  or  even  forced 
upon  them.  In  West  Africa  there  are  public 
halls  where  every  maiden  is  exposed  prior  to 
marriage,  often  for  a  period  of  several  months. 
And  the  instances  mentioned  by  Herodotus  and 
Strabo  show  that  among  the  Lydians,  Assyrians, 
and  Babylonians  a  woman  was  not  free  to  marry 
till  she  had  offered  herself  once  in  the  temple 
of  Venus.  The  Jews  seem  to  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  this  custom,  but  rejected  it  (Dent. 
xxiii.  18).  A  somewhat  similar  usage  obtained 
in  the  Balearic  Islands,  where  the  bride  became 
the  exclusive  wife  of  her  husband  only  on  the 
day  after  the  wedding.  And  among  the  Santals, 
a  hill  tribe  of  India,  marriage  is  now  brought 
about  by  turning  all  the  young  people  promis- 
cuously together,  and  requiring  them,  after  six 
days'  license,  to  pair  off  as  man  and  wife.  Kor 
must  it  be  supposed  that  such  revolting  practices 
are  limited  to  marriage  ceremonies.  It  would  be 
easy  to  enumerate  examples  of  female  licentious- 
ness continuing  throughout  the  entire  period  of 
unmarried  life.  But  I  think  it  will  be  enough 
to  mention  what  was  narrated  to  me  last  summer 
by  a  missionary  who  had  spent  several  years  at 


ii    f 


!i'  M 


248      Maidenly  Chastity  unknown, 

Aneitjnm,  and  is  now  about  to  settle  on  Santo, 
both  islands  in  the  New  Hebrides.  Maidenly 
chastity  was  there,  according  to  this  unimpeach- 
able authority,  an  unknown  conception,  unlimited 
hetairism  being  the  normal  condition  of  every 
unmarried  woman  from  earliest  giilhood.  And 
licentiousness  had  so  colored  tlieir  modes  of 
thought  and  speech  that  it  seemed  impossible  to 
initiate  them  into  Christian  purity  without,  at 
the  same  time,  teaching  them  a  new  and  cleaner 
language. 

It  is  facts  liko  theso  that  moralists,  especially 
of  the  intuitive  school,  are  called  upon  to  face. 
Nor  are  these  the  only  perplexing  facts  bearing 
upon  the  morality  of  the  family.  It  must  be 
recognized  that  among  savages  marrying  is,  for 
the  most  part,  but  the  acquisition  by  the  man  of 
a  new  object  of  gratification,  a  chattel  which  may 
at  once  minister  to  his  appetite  and  conduce  to 
his  profit.  Wives  are,  accordingly,  stolen  or 
bought  like  any  other  property,  though  purchase, 
which  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  Iliad  and  the  Pen- 
tateuch, is  far  more  prevalent  at  the  present  day 
than  capture.  It  is  still  the  theory  of  Moslem 
law.  Among  certain  savage  tribes  a  man  wilh 
several  daughters  is  esteemed  rich ;  and  whan 
among  such  people  infanticide  is  practised,  girls 


mi 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       249 

are  spared  of tener  than  boys,  as  Dobritzhoffer  re- 
lates of  the  Abiponians.  And  this  conception  of 
women  as  property  naturally  leads,  were  there 
not  other  motors,  to  polygyny.  Thus  Clavigero 
relates  that  among  the  Mexicans  the  possession 
of  a  large  number  of  wives  was  regarded  as  a  sign 
and  proof  of  superiority.  And  there  is  similar 
testimony  regarding  many  savage  tribes,  in  which 
a  direct  relation  may  be  observed  between  the 
means  and  standing  of  the  husband  and  the 
number  of  his  wives.  In  Ashantee  the  king  is 
allowed  uv  law  three  thousand  three  hundred  and 
thirty-three.  The  king  of  Yornba  boasted  that 
his  wives,  of  whom  some  composed  his  body- 
guard, would,  linked  hand  in  hand,  reach  clean 
across  his  kingdom.  And  polygyny,  though 
necessarily  on  a  smaller  scale,  is  practised  in  all 
parts  of  the  earth — from  the  frigid  to  the  torrid 
zone,  over  connected  continents,  and  on  solitary 
ocean  isles.  And  as  it  prevails  over  vast  areas  of 
space,  so  it  spans  ages  of  time,  appearing  with 
the  first  dawn  of  history  and  flourishing  to  this 
day  an)ong  a  large  part  of  the  human  family.  - 
To  these  deviations  from  our  own  marriage 
practices  must  be  added  examples  of  incest. 
These  occur,  naturally,  in  endogamous  tribes.  The 
Veddahs  of  Ceylon  had  a  custom,  not  yet  ex- 


250 


Incest. 


»M' 


tinct,  sanctioning  the  marriage  of  a  man  with  his 
younger  sister,  though  they  held  it  revolting  to 
marry  an  elder  sister  or  aunt.  The  same  prac- 
tice is  found  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  where  the 
king  sometimes  married  his  sister,  as  among  the 
Peruvians  the  Incas  always  did.  According  to 
Hearne,  the  Chippewayans  frequently  espoused 
their  own  daughters,  giving  them  over,  after  some 
time,  to  their  sons.  Other  savages  have  cei>  'n 
bars  to  marriage,  some  of  them  corresponding 
almost  to  our  table  of  prohibited  degrees.  But 
the  field  of  choice  for  wiving  is  exceedingly  va- 
ried. Where  a  tribe  is  at  once  exogamous  and 
endogamous,  and  lias  at  the  same  time  no  sense 
of  consanguinity,  there  is  no  limit  whatever ;  so 
that  a  man's  wife  may  be  a  remote  foreigner  or 
liis  own  sister,  or  if  he  be  polygamous,  both  may 
be  his  wives.  If  the  tribe  be  purely  exogamous, 
he  may  marry  anyone  outside  it,  except  in  that 
restricted  exogamy  which  limits  him  to  his  own 
confederacy.  And  if  the  tribe  be  purely  endog- 
amous, his  choice  is  narrowed  to  its  own  female 
members,  including  or  excluding,  according  as  a 
sense  of  blood -relationship  is  developed  or  not, 
his  own  immediate  kin  and  affinity. 

There  are  other  peculiar  features  of  family  life 
among  the  uncivilized,  which  could  not  be  omit- 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       251 

ted  from  a  picture  making  any  pretensions  to 
completeness.  But  for  a  comparative  study  of 
the  ethics  of  the  family  the  details  already  men- 
tioned will  perhaps  be  sufficient. 

This  survey,  brief  as  it  has  been,  can  scarcely 
Iiave  failed  to  generate  a  suspicion  of  the  histori- 
cal character  of  those  moral  ideals  which  draw 
their  nourishment  from  the  relations  established 
between  the  sexes.  Were  these  relations  every- 
where the  same,  our  domestic  morality  would 
seem  as  ultimate  and  as  final  as  justice  or  benev- 
olence. But  it  is  despoiled  of  its  absoluteness 
when  the  discovery  is  made  that  our  own  form 
of  marriage  is  but  one  of  several  competing 
types,  that  the  "relations  dear  of  father,  son, 
and  brother"  have  different  foundations  among 
different  peoples,  and  that  chastity  and  fidelity 
are  so  far  from  universal  virtues  that  many  peo- 
ples have  no  conception  of  them,  and  when  they 
have  appeared  they  seem  to  have  grown  out  of 
rights  in  women  as  property — adultery  in  Mada- 
gascar, e.g.^  having  the  same  punishment  as  theft 
— and  are  consequently  never,  or  seldom,  required 
of  savage  men.  The  rights,  duties,  virtues,  and 
sentiments  associated  with  our  idea  of  the  family 
cannot,  therefore,  be  considered  a  part  of  the 
content  of  the  moral  law  universal. 


252  opposing  Eth  ical  Schools, 


l!l< 


1^     f     1 


This  seems  to  me  a  result  of  considerable  im- 
portance for  moral  philosophy.  And  it  is  a  re- 
sult that  cannot  be  gainsaid  by  any  school,  since 
it  is  not  a  speculation,  not  even  an  inference,  but 
an  undeniable  statement  of  actual  facts. 

Moralists  have  divided  into  opposing  camps  on 
the  question  of  the  ultimate  or  the  derivative 
nature  of  morality.  While  one  party  recognizes 
in  moral  laws  nothing  but  means  to  ends,  the 
other  finds  in  them  the  expression  of  uncreated 
and  unchanging  relations,  whose  closest  analogue 
is  presented  by  mathematics.  When  this  time- 
worn  controve  sy  is  stripped  of  the  accidental 
features  by  which  party  rage  has  heightened  the 
contrast  J  it  will  be  seen  that  these  positions  are 
not  mutually  exclusive.  If  a  moral  law  is  but  a 
maxim  for  the  attainment  of  an  end,  then,  unless 
the  theory  is  suicidal,  therg  must  be  some  ulti- 
mate end  or  ends  for  the  sake  of  which  maxims 
are  enjoined ;  and  this  absolute  object  might  very 
properly  be  described  as  eternally  desirable,  self- 
evidencing,  and  standing  in  the  same  relation  to 
the  conscience  (which  recognizes  its  authority)  as 
a  mathematical  principle  to  the  understanding 
(which  recognizes  its  truth).  In  other  words,  ihe 
relativist  cannot  logically  escape  the  admission 
that  at  least  some  moral  principle  or  principles 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       253 

are  intuitive,  self-evident,  and  underived.  And, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  principle  of  universal 
benevolence  has  been  so  treated  by  relativists,  at 
least  since  the  time  of  Bentham.  But  the  impli- 
cations of  their  logic  have  been  hidden  from 
themselves,  through  emphasis  upon  irrelevant 
issues.  Holding  the  happiness  of  mankind  as 
the  sole  ultimate  good,  they  delighted  to  dwell 
upon  the  relativity  of  sundry  virtues,  and  to 
show  their  emptiness  and  worthlessness  apart 
from  a  tendency  to  promote  the  general  w^elfare. 
And  with  still  more  ardor  they  proclaimed  that 
the  supreme  good,  or  happiness  of  mankind,  con- 
sisted in  pleasure,  which  alone  they  declared 
truly  desirable,  if,  indeed  (as  they  generally  de- 
nied), anything  else  could  really  be  the  object  of 
human  desire.  Now,  these  highly  speculative 
and  dubious  positions  should  not  obscure  to  our 
view  the  underlying  intuitional  groundwork. 
Something  at  least  is  recognized  as  self-evident, 
primitive,  and  inviolably  obligatory — the  welfare 
of  mankind.  It  is  not,  therefore,  upon  the  ex- 
istence of  primitive  intuitions,  but  upon  their 
immber,  that  the  difference  turns  between  the 
relative  and  the  absolute  moralist.  They  agree 
that  there  are  primal  and  underived  moral  prin- 
ciples;  but  they  cannot  agree  in  determining 


i  ( 

,1    ! 


if 


H  ' 


254     //<?2«;  Related  and  Contrasted, 

what  they  are.  Universal  benevolence,  according 
to  Mill ;  benevolence,  justice,  veracity,  and  many 
others,  according  to  Butler.  But  whether  one 
intuition  or  many,  the  defender  of  either  position 
is  essentially  an  intuitionist. 

Still,  though  not  so  great  a  difference  as  has 
been  supposed,  a  difference  very  real  yet  remains 
Tinadjudicated  between  the  two  schools.  I  need 
scarcely  point  out,  at  the  close  of  this  volume,  the 
futility  of  submitting  it  to  the  equivocal  arbitra- 
ment of  many-voiced  speculation.  The  results  of 
this  procedure  are  too  sadly  evident  in  the  med- 
ley of  personal  prejudices,  guesses,  and  vagaries 
that  pass  with  us  for  ethical  science.  As  specu- 
lation has  its  source  in  a  personal  need,  and  de- 
rives its  form  from  the  nature  of  the  personality, 
so,  as  Lotze  was  ever  ready  to  recognize,  the  sat- 
isfaction it  gives  and  the  validity  it  can  claim  are, 
primarily,  only  individual.  But  science  must 
consist  of  propositions  objectively  established — 
valid  tor  you  as  well  as  for  me.  Moral  phenom- 
ena have  hitherto  been  the  subject  of  speculation ; 
and  the  contents  of  the  moral  law  have  been 
formulated  according  to  individual  caprice.  Now, 
what  I  propose  is  that  we  shall  pass  by  this  fruit- 
less method  and  proceed  soienf/ifically  to  deter- 
mine the  point  here  at  issue — the  nature  of  the 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       255 

moral  law,  the  comparative  primitiveness  of  moral 
principles,  the  derivative  or  inderivative  character 
of  morality.  And  after  the  methodological  con- 
siderations in  the  first  chapter,  it  will  scarcely  be 
necessary  to  remark  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  ques- 
tion can  be  settled  only  by  an  appeal  to  observa- 
tion and  history. 

It  may  be  objected  that  ethics  deals  with  what 
ought  to  he,  not  what  has  heen.  But  the  objection 
ignores  the  fatal  consideration  that  no  science  can 
DETERMINE  WHAT  OUGHT  TO  BE ;  that  we  know  it, 
as  a  mathematical  friend  of  mine  is  wont  to  say, 
in  language  as  aptly  expressive  as  Wordsworth's 
ode,  only  by  ''feeling  it  in  our  bones;"  and  that 
any  speculation  on  the  subject  has  no  authority 
or  validity  beyond  the  speculator  himself.  Be- 
sides, the  problem  of  the  science  of  ethics,  or  of 
liistorical  etl.ics,  is  not  adequately  described  in 
the  foregoing  objection.  That  problem  is,  if  not 
what  ought  to  be,  at  least  what  man  has  thought 
ought  to  he. 

Unfortunately,  data  are  not  yet  at  hand  for  the 
complete  solution  of  this  scientific  problem.  The 
science  of  historical  ethics  is  still  too  young  to 
have  established  what  moral  principles  are  ulti- 
mate and  fundamental — that  is,  what  principles 
man,  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  has  considered 


,.  ^  ■■  1 


i 

i 

i 


'I 


■I 'lit: 
I       1 1 


256 


History  as  Arbtler, 


binding.  But  tliougli  it  is  not  yet  discovered 
wliat  morality  is  primordial  and  universal,  it  has 
been  settled  beyond  donbt  that  the  so-called  in- 
tuitionist  school,  or  certain  members  of  it,  have 
erred  in  supposing  all  the  virtues  to  be  of  that 
description.  History  and  observation  have  alike 
demonstrated  the  absence  of  the  ideas  of  chastity 
and  fidelity  in  the  moral  furnishing  of  the  minds 
or  many  savage  and  barbarous  tribes.  By  follow- 
ing the  same  method,  similar  inductions  might  be 
established,  uniil  ethical  science  had  completely 
made  out  the  number  and  the  nature  of  the  prim- 
itive and  universal  moral  intuitions. 

But  though  domestic  morality  is  certainly  a 
derivative  and  occasional  growth,  I  do  not  hold 
that  other  important  virtues  have  had  a  like 
historical  origin.  On  a  field  in  which  there  has 
been  so  little  investigation,  opinion,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  cannot  pretend  to  finality,  or 
even  to  much  solidity.  But  some  gropings  amid 
the  general  darkness  incline  me,  at  least  tenta- 
tively, to  the  belief  that,  apart  from  the  domestic 
virtues,  there  is  no  such  great  difference  between 
the  morals  of  Christians  and  the  morals  of  sav- 
ages. Observers  are  naturally  struck  with  what 
is  new  and  unlike  their  own  modes  of  thought 
and  conduct;  and  so  it  often  happens  that  the 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       257 

most  superficial  dissimilarities  produce  a  pro- 
found impression,  while  the  great  body  of  com- 
mon morals  escapes  notic^^.  This  want  of  per- 
spective is  manifest  alike  in  the  oral  and  written 
descriptions  of  travellers,  as  everyone  will  have 
felt  who  has  tried  to  digest  their  information  and 
arrange  it  into  a  distinct  system.  "When  I  first 
inquired  of  the  missionary,  already  referred  to, 
into  the  moral  condition  of  the  natives  of  the 
New  Hebrides,  he  described  them  as  a  gross, 
debased  people  with  scarcely  any  sense  of  mo- 
rality. This  is  the  popular  view  of  the  North 
American  Indians,  though  it  is  certainly  errone- 
ous ;  and  the  reader  of  Parkman's  brilliant  vol- 
umes may  suspect  that  one  grea^  social  evil — the 
condition  of  the  poor — they  disposed  of  with 
more  compassionate  equity  and  with  more  success 
than  their  later  civilized  maligners.  I  found,  too, 
on  going  iijto  details  with  my  missionary  friend, 
that  the  New  Hebridean  natives,  among  whom 
he  had  spent  many  years,  were,  in  their  deal- 
ings with  oru  another,  severely  just,  scrupulously 
truthful,  compassionate  toward  the  wretched 
and  unfortunate,  so  honest  that  an  individual  on 
going  off  to  pay  a  visit  of  some  weeks  would 
leave  his  tent,  containing  all  his  possessions,  open 

and  untenanted,  without  any  fear  of  theft,  and 
17 


-I   J 


i)ii:  ^li 


258      Christian  and  Savage  Morality, 

that  tliey  were  in  general  endowed  v^'ith  all  that 
virile  morality  by  wiiicli  men  regulate  their  con- 
duct towards  one  another  and  msvke  living  together 
in  society  possible.  "What,  then,  was  the  founda- 
tion of  the  missionary's  general  depreciatory 
judgment  ?  It  was  not  a  baseless  verdict.  His 
opinion  had  been  formed  in  the  light  of  an  ob- 
servation that  astonished  and  appalled  him.  Ho 
v/as  surrounded  by  a  community  that  had  noi  the 
faintest  conception  of  the  virtue  of  chastity,  and 
chastity  has  been  so  exalted  and  glorified  by  the 
Christian  Church  that  its  absence  might  well 
strike  a  Christian  missionary  as  the  collapse  of 
all  moralit3\ 

It  has  now  been  shown  that  the  morality  of 
the  family  is  varied  and  changeable.  It  has  fur- 
ther been  suggested  that,  when  women  are  put 
aside,  a  remarkable  agreement  may  be  found  be- 
tween the  morals  of  savage  and  civilized  man. 
But  this  last  statement  requires  some  qualifi- 
cation. The  modern  American  owes  duties  to 
every  man  as  man  ;  the  primitive  American  owes 
none  outside  the  circle  of  his  own  tribe.  This 
contrast,  however,  is  rather  apparent  than  real. 
For,  in  times  of  war.  Christian  nations  think  it 
right  to  kill  and  plunder  their  enemies ;  and  the 
normal  condition  of  the  savage  is  one  of  war. 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       259 

with  the  rest  of  mankind  as  enemy.  We  may, 
therefore,  say  that  under  the  same  conditions  the 
morality  of  savage  and  of  civilized  peoples  is 
fundamentally  the  same.  There  is,  however,  a 
further  limitation.  Life  has  no  sacredness^^r  ae 
among  many  savages ;  and  children  and  old  men, 
as  useless  memhers  of  the  community,  are,  under 
the  stern  law  of  necessity  or  of  custom,  crystal- 
lized from  it — frequently  put  to  death.  This, 
however,  must  not  be  confounded  with  murder ; 
since  among  primitive  peoples  children  fall  under 
the  category  of  property,  and  are,  therefore,  like 
slaves  or  other  chattels,  at  the  absolute  disposi- 
tion of  the  head  of  the  house,  as  is  very  forci- 
bly illustrated  in  early  Roman  law.  With  these 
qualifications  and  explanations,  our  proposition 
in  its  final  form  may  be  thus  expressed:  The 
fighting  men,  actual  and  potential,  in  every  un- 
civilized community  recognize  the  same  rights, 
obligations,  and  duties  towards  one  another  as 
constitute  the  essence  of  civilized  morality.  You 
never  find  man  without  a  moral  nature,  a  nature 
essentially  like  our  own ;  but  the  objects  he  in- 
cludes within  the  scope  of  its  outgoings  vary,  and 
as  women  and  children  were  (sometimes  at  least) 
regarded  as  property  before  they  were  regarded 
as  persons,  the  ethics  of  the  family  may  be  called 


f< 


»l 


m 


)  -i 


260  Tke  Position  of  Woman, 

an  acquisition  or,  better,  an  outcome,  a  late  flower 
of  the  ineradicable  root  of  morality. 

If,  as  Plato  supposes,  reverence  and  justice  were 
the  primal  gifts  of  God  to  man,  then  it  was  not 
until  there  had  been  some  tillage  in  earthly  life 
that  they  blossomed  into  fidelity,  chastity,  and  all 
the  charities  of  the  family.  How  this  quickening 
of  moral  discernment  is  brought  about  we  cannot 
always  explain ;  but  the  process  of  development 
may  in  some  cases  be  actually  traced,  notably  in 
the  history  of  Rome.  At  the  foundation  of  the 
city,  wife-stealing  was  the  practice ;  this  was  fol- 
lowed by  purchase  and  legalized  dominion  under 
patriapotestas  /  but  in  the  course  of  several  cen- 
turies the  equal  personality  of  woman  came  to  be 
recognized,  and  Roman  jurisprudence  secured  her 
a  position  as  exalted  as  ever  she  has  occupied 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  Her  glory  was  of 
short  duration,  perishing  with  the  fall  of  the 
empire ;  but  it  has  been  regained  under  the  in- 
spiration and  teaching  of  a  religion  which  pro- 
claims the  infinite  worth  and,  consequently,  the 
fundamental  equality  of  evsry  human  being,  and 
which  exacts  in  the  relations  between  the  sexes 
such  perfect  purity  that  all  distinction  vanishes 
between  the  look  of  lust  and  the  act  of  adultery. 

As  conjugal  relations  among  mankind  are  not 


n: 


The  Evolution  of  Morality,       261 

of  one  but  of  various  forms,  and  as  at  least  some 
of  them  have  undergone  change  and  development, 
curiosity  and,  even,  apprehension  may  be  felt 
about  the  finality  of  our  own  system  of  monan- 
drous  and  monogynous  life-marriage,  with  its  fair 
train  of  sweet  and  pure  domestic  virtues.  Is  it  to 
remain  forever,  or  is  it  destined  to  suffer  the 
common  fate  of  those  evolutionary  potencies 
which,  in  spite  of  seeming  fixedness,  turn  out  but 
moments  in  the  life  of  an  eternal  becoming, 
fleeting  shadows  of  something  that  never  is,  but 
always  strives  to  be  ?  To  this  question,  answers 
liave  been  given  by  evolutionists  of  a  speculative 
turn  of  mind.  And  no  objection  need  be  taken 
to  their  intellectual  gymnastics,  provided  only 
it  is  understood  they  are  merely  indulging  in 
guesses  concerning  a  matter  which  does  not  admit 
of  even  probable  determination.  One  needs  not 
to  be  especially  sensible  to  what  Bishop  Butler 
described  as  the  doubtfulness  in  which  things  are 
involved,  it  is  enough  to  consider  our  absolute 
ignorance  of  futurity,  to  have  the  conviction  that 
nothing  whatever  can  be  known  about  the  com- 
ing development  of  society,  or  of  any  part  of  its 
organization. 

Our  knowledgjC  of  the  family  is  restricted  to 
the  period  of  its  actual  existence.     This,  surely, 


i;: 


I 


!  i 

ft 


Mil 


■  \  i 


'^   !l 


262  //oza  Affected  by  Divorce, 

is  a  field  vast  enough  for  scientific  cultivation. 
And  of  late  considerable  progress  has  been  made 
in  the  investigation  of  the  domestic  life  of  primi- 
tive times.  Much  yet  remains  to  be  done  in 
comparing,  arranging,  and  interpreting  what 
passes  before  our  own  eyes.  It  is  a  remark  of 
Burke^s  that  the  generality  of  people  are  fifty 
years  at  least  behindhand  in  their  politics.  And 
of  social  phenomena,  still  more  than  of  political,  is 
it  true  that  men  are  "  wise  with  but  little  reflec- 
tion "  in  the  understanding  of  all  times  but  their 
own.  While  we  have  been  ransacking  the  past, 
and  forecasting  the  future,  a  change  is  actually 
going  on  in  the  form  of  our  own  system  of  con- 
jugal relations,  the  significance  of  which  seems 
altogether  to  have  escaped  attention.  The  efPect 
of  divorce,  which  has  now  been  legalized  in  the 
greater  pari  of  Europe  and  America,  has  been  to 
transform,  within  the  area  of  its  actual  operation, 
civilized  marriage  into  a  casual  bond  essentially 
indistinguishable  from  that  which  formed  the 
basis  of  what  Morgan  has  called  the  "  syndyas- 
mian  or  pairing  "  family — the  family  of  the  Iro- 
quois and  other  North  American  Indians.  The 
legal  forms,  the  technical  procedure,  the  solemn 
plausibilities  of  the  court,  unessential  and  sub- 
sidiary as  they  really  are,  serve  to  hide  from 


The  Evolution  of  Morality.       263 

us  the  essential  object  to  which  these  are  but 
convenient  instruments.  The  virtue,  soul,  and 
essence  of  the  whole  business  is  the  existence 
among  us  of  a  family  ethics  admitting  casual 
unions  and  separations  of  the  sexes  with  the  same 
facility  and  frequency,  and  with  as  little  loss  of 
respectability,  as  is  wont  to  obtain  among  savages 
and  barbarians.  It  would  doubtless  be  considered 
paradoxical  to  declare  we  had  become  converts 
to  Milton's  theory  of  divorce.  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  we  have,  both  in  practice  and  in  legisla- 
tion, gone  considerably  beyond  it.  Every  day's 
newspaper  supplies  fresh  examples,  and  it  would 
be  musty  to  cite  the  now  obsolete  scandal  of  last 
week  in  the  divorce-history  of  Rhode  Island. 
Blind  to  the  havoc  which  divorce  is  making  in 
the  old  family  system,  we  atone  for  our  man- 
ners by  embodying  the  principles  of  our  fathers 
in  denunciation  of  the  Mormons.  Unfortunate- 
ly, this  application  of  our  retrospective  wisdom 
and  orthodoxy  serves  only  to  distract  attention 
from  the  anomaly  of  our  own  practice,  which 
(if  polygamy  be  the  name  for  "much-marriage" 
successively  as  well  as  synchronously)  may  be 
justly  described  as  essential  polyandry  and  po- 
lygyny- 
This  change  in  the  constitution  of  the  civilized 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-S) 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


2.5 
2.2 

12.0 

U    1116 


Photographic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


4\1^ 


33  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14580 

(716)  872-4503 


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6^ 


^ 


W    '  t 


264         Science  Indifferent  to  It, 


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and  Christian  family,  with  the  consequent  ob- 
scuration of  domestic  virtue,  receives  no  counte- 
nance from  ethical  science.  On  the  contrary, 
comparative  and  historical  ethics  show  that  the 
"  pairing  "  family  has  hitherto  always  been  as- 
sociated with  a  stage  of  culture  immensely  infe- 
rior to  our  own.  And,  from  the  interrelation  of 
social  forces,  it  might  not  unreasonably  be  ap- 
prehended that  a  return  to  the  barbaroiis  system 
of  conjugal  relations  would  entail  general  social 
deterioration.  If  ethical  science  does  show  that 
the  family,  and  the  morality  of  the  family,  have 
had  an  historical  growth,  and  that  they  vary 
with  time  and  place,  it  does  not  thereby  really 
derogate  from  their  sanctity  or  authority  within 
a  civilization  that  has  once  absorbed  them.  Sci- 
ence, indeed,  can  tell  us  nothing  of  the  validity 
of  virtue,  duty,  or  good.  And  if  speculation  in 
the  guise  of  moral  philosophy  takes  up  the  prob- 
lem, it  will  find  that  the  domestic  virtues  have 
the  same  warrant  as  justice  or  benevolence — that 
warrant  being,  in  a  last  analysis,  an  inexpugnable 
consciousness  of  their  right  to  us  and  authority 
over  us. 


wmmm 


